


All Your Colors Start To Burn

by unkissed



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling, Harry Potter and the Cursed Child - Thorne & Rowling
Genre: Coming of Age, Loss of Virginity, M/M, POV Alternating, POV First Person, POV Second Person, POV Third Person, Secret Relationship, Temporarily Unrequited Love, explicit sexual content in later chapters
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-01
Updated: 2018-07-31
Packaged: 2019-06-19 17:03:05
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 8
Words: 25,891
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15514437
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/unkissed/pseuds/unkissed
Summary: You shouldn't want him. But when you're alone at night, you see him behind your closed eyelids - this gold Adonis of a boy.  And when James Sirius Potter looks at you with a tempest in his ocean blue eyes, all your colors start to burn.





	1. Colors and Trickery

**Author's Note:**

> This is a compilation of stories that were originally published separately in the Color of Deception series. I've put them together in chapters for easier reading and better flow. The title is from the song "Take Shelter" by Years and Years.

You’re a puzzle piece that has never quite fit into the picture, with your messy turquoise hair and your lavender eyes that make people stare curiously, shamelessly, as if the fact that you’re a metamorphmagus means you don’t deserve the same courtesy as the people staring. And so you stare right back, daring them to say something, often changing the shape of your face, just to give them something to really gawk at.  You’d think magical folk would be accustomed to the sight of changelings in their midst after millennia of co-existence, but even wizards love a good freak show.

As you grew up, you spent a great deal of energy learning to control The Change.  You were able to mold your features briefly to entertain your friends or to impress Jamie, Albie, and Lily. 

But your hair is another story.  Most of the time, your hair does what it wants to do, which is to garishly announce your emotions to the whole damn world.  It’s not very original either and anybody with some experience in interpreting symbolism can read you easily.  Dull bluish-green means you’re unhappy, and the brightness of your default turquoise is indicative of your degree of happiness.  Red means you’re angry.  Most people would think that pink means you’re embarrassed, which isn’t far off, so you let them believe that. 

But in reality, pink is the color your hair turns when you’re alone in your room and you’re rubbing one out, or if you’re lucky (which you’ve not been in quite some time), getting off with somebody. Pink is the color of the tips of your fringe when a certain cocky teenage boy smirks at you in a way that means trouble – in a way that means he’s thinking completely unholy thoughts about you. And pink is the color of your hair when you’re thinking completely unholy thoughts about him.

And then there’s purple.  Purple doesn’t happen often.  Your hair hasn’t been purple in years, since a particular young university professor made love to you and had you believe he’d give up everything for you. But now you know that, just like you, your hair can be tricked into turning colors.

 

Colors are ingrained into your memories, perhaps because color is such an intrinsic part of who you are and _what_ you are. 

 

Blue is the color of the day you broke Jamie’s heart.

He was fifteen and you were twenty-one. When he confessed his feelings for you, the initial brightness of your hair quickly muted and turned dull. You had suspected for years that James thought more of you than just a god brother or a role model. And by the time he confessed, you’d already known that he didn’t want to _be_ you – he _wanted_ you.

Your brow furrowed with grief as you had told him, “Jamie, you know I love you like a brother.”

He’d just spilled his heart out to you and that’s all you could give him.  But you knew it wasn’t what he deserved. 

You had given his shoulder what was supposed to be a reassuring pat, but it came off more like a patronizing gesture and you still want to smack yourself for treating him like a poor little puppy. Because what Jamie didn’t know was that, in the months leading up to that moment, pink was the color you saw behind your closed eyelids when you were alone with your thoughts of him – this Adonis of a boy who you could never allow yourself to have. 

 

Orange is the color of the day Jamie kissed you – a mélange of crimson, infernal anger and searing, bright yellow fear. 

You were twenty-three, about six weeks into your first semester as the new Transfiguration professor at Hogwarts. You felt out of place – too young to be a teacher, and too old to be a student.  And you worried that Interim Headmistress Oglvie would recognize your inadequacy and sack you.  So you hadn’t even unpacked the boxes of your belongings in your staff quarters because your position didn’t feel secure.  You were sleep-deprived from staying up late marking papers and preparing lesson plans, and it showed in every part of you.  Your hair was often tinged grey at the tips, not from the premature ravages of age, but from constant worry and stress.

Of course, Jamie recognized your fatigue. And because he loves you, he felt compelled to do something about it.  You didn’t want to accept his assistance at first – you were afraid that it would encourage unwanted advances and indulge his infatuation of you. But it soon became apparent that you were drowning in work and that you desperately needed help. You woke up one morning to find that Jamie had graded your first year papers the night before, after you had passed out at your desk.  A few nights after that, you were amenable to letting him unpack those boxes for you.

It was late.  Jamie’s status as Head Boy afforded him the privilege of being out of the dorms at that hour to do patrols, but it didn’t give him license to be in the staff quarters.  He was doing you a great service by organizing your books, which allowed you time to grade a fat stack of pop quizzes.  So his presence was justified, you’d thought, and you resolved to vouch for him if any of the other staff objected.

As usual, you were exhausted, and by this hour of night, your head was becoming fuzzy.  And maybe your sleep-deprived mind could be blamed for your lapse in judgment. You probably shouldn’t have been so close to him, hovering behind to check that he’d alphabetized the books on your shelf in a way that satisfied your obsessive-compulsive Ravenclaw need for orderliness.

Jamie turned around and put his hand on your shoulder. “I told you, Teddy. I got this.  Go do what you need to do.” 

“I just finished grading those damn pop quizzes,” you said around a yawn. 

He furrowed his brow with concern and kneaded the muscles of your shoulder.  “You need to sleep. Go to bed – I’ll finish this up and let myself out when I’m done.”

You never thought that this reckless kid you grew up with would ever be taking care of you at seventeen.  You left him in the other room and kept the door to your bedroom slightly ajar because you felt weird about shutting him out like a servant.  If letting him get so physically close to you hadn’t been a mistake, this seemingly innocuous act would certainly prove to be a huge one.

You didn’t know what time it was, but you knew it was still nighttime when a soft brush of lips upon your forehead woke you up. Half in dream, you thought it was the ghost of your mother or perhaps an angel blessing you. But when you opened your bleary eyes, Jamie was there, sitting at the edge of your bed, hovering over you with his hands on either side of your pillow, casting a shadow in the faint light from the other room glowing behind him.

“I didn’t mean to wake you,” he whispered, and smiled in a soft way you’d never seen him smile before.  “Just saying goodnight.”

Your heart hurt in the same way it did when Jamie was fifteen and telling you he loved you.  You were too sleepy to get upset or to push him away. “Goodnight, Jamie,” you said, and you thought you owed him more – you always feel like you owe him more than you can give him.  So you added, “I can’t thank you enough for all your help.”

He smirked as he looked down upon you and drawled quietly, “I can think of a few ways you can properly thank me.”

You chuckled softly because Jamie never ceases to amuse you with his cheekiness. And there was your next mistake. Perhaps laughing made Jamie think that it was okay to be flirty – you had been letting him get away with it for years now. But there was nothing appropriate about this scene at all and you both bloody well knew it.

“Goodnight, Teddy,” he said, lingering there, his eyes twinkling like dark stars above you.  The cocky little smirk on his face soon softened, and he was looking at you with so much want in his eyes that you could feel it burning through you. You didn’t know it yet, but the tips of your hair were turning pink as Jamie was brushing the fringe from your forehead.

He knew.  He must have seen the rosy tinge to your hair.  He must have known what it really meant, for he leaned down and kissed you again, this time firmly on your mouth.  And you were paralyzed.  You didn’t want to push him away for fear of hurting him.  You didn’t want to move at all, for fear of inadvertently encouraging him. So you lay there, immobilized with alarm and dread, as the world burned down around you and Jamie melted into you.

You wanted it to feel wrong.  You wanted it to feel like you were kissing your brother. But it felt wonderful. His lips moved over yours with purpose and confidence, with an entitlement and command that was all Jamie and everything you loved about him.  You found your lips parting for his tongue and your breath hitching in your chest.

His body shifted on the bed to drape over yours. And even through the layers of fabric that separated you, you felt for the first time in your life that you actually fit somewhere – like your body was fashioned to nestle warmly beneath Jamie’s. You moaned into the kiss despite yourself and it was all Jamie needed to start a whirlwind of tossed bed sheets, cast off robes, and ripped open pajamas. 

You weren’t frozen with apprehension anymore; you were on fire, and moving your fingers over every inch of exposed flesh you could reach. You let your hands traverse the forbidden territories of his delicate musculature and became lost along the pathways of smooth, freckled skin.  You allowed him the same liberty to explore you, and you never felt more beautiful and adored than beneath his reverent touch.  Every part of you he touched turned a delicate shade of pink to match your hair, and every part of him you touched, you destroyed.  Because, despite all the hands that have touched him, and there have been many, nothing compares to being touched by the person you love – and you had ruined his flesh for others with each kiss and covetous caress.

It never felt iniquitous, except in that delicious way that sexual pleasure always does.  But it _was_ wrong. It was wrong for so many reasons - reasons that you had been hammering into your head and Jamie’s very hard head going on two years now.  So you pressed your palm firmly to his bare, heaving chest and you whispered against his lips, “Stop.” It was a meek, half-arsed protest. “Please.  I can’t do this.”

And that’s when Jamie shattered. You watched him fall apart and crumble all around you.  He pressed his forehead against yours, held you by your hair, and heaved a long, shuddering sigh. “Don’t do this to me again.”  He sounded so broken, and at the same time, so fed up and angry.

“What am I supposed to do?” you pleaded helplessly, feeling the words tight in your throat, “What do you want from me, Jamie?”

You could feel him quivering against you. Your closed eyes felt wet with his tears. His fingers tightened in your hair. “I want you to stop lying to me.” His words were pained and frustrated.

“Jamie, look at me.  I’m not--”

He pulled back and didn’t let you finish. “No, look at _yourself_ , Teddy.  Take a good hard look at yourself in the mirror.  Tell me what you see.  You can’t fucking lie to me.”

You didn’t have to look in the mirror to confirm your suspicions.  You knew your hair screamed your desires and your apprehensions and your love – but more than that, your actions had spoken volumes. 

You were older now and able to manipulate your appearance much more easily.  And so you swallowed your emotions and grit your teeth and used the malleability of your hair color to send a clear message.

“James,” you said, harshly because you had to. You concentrated all your energy into turning your hair a bright shock of red as you pierced him with a stern glare and said, “I need you to stop this.  I don’t want this to go on.”

He shook his head slowly, looking furious and anguished.  He muttered bitterly, “You’re a fucking liar, Teddy Lupin.”

He left your rooms with his robes half on under his cloak, huffing in a quiet rage.  And you were afraid that he was leaving your life for good.  Even though you understood it would be for the best, you still didn’t want him to – you never knew life without him, and you didn’t want to know the misery of it.  He slammed your door and you knew the rest of the staff wouldn’t miss the sound. You feared the implications. You couldn’t fall back asleep, so plagued were you with worry.  You worried about Jamie, about your career, about disappointing Harry.

 

The next day, Jamie sneered at you as he walked past the staff table in the Great Hall at breakfast.  He snorted sarcastically, his words tinged with bitterness, “Nice hat, _Professor_.” The way he said your title made you wince.  For weeks prior, Jamie had been saying it as if he were savoring it on his tongue and it had made your pulse race.  But that morning, he had said _Professor_ like it was sour, and it felt like a stab in the heart.

It was not unusual for the professors at Hogwarts to wear hats.  So it shouldn’t have been odd that you were wearing a fedora today.  But you weren’t wearing it as a fashion statement, nor a mark of distinction above the students whom you barely looked older than.  Jamie was astutely aware of why you were wearing that hat.

It was because you couldn’t lie to Jamie, no matter how you tricked your hair into behaving.  He would always see what he wanted to see in the color of your hair. And the hat was your only defense, however futile.  It was a fruitless effort because, no matter the hue of your locks, Jamie would always see right through you. Exactly the way he saw you today.

 

Nobody knows you like Jamie knows you. He has seen all of your colors – every shade and every hue.  He is the last person you want to lie to.  But you keep doing it.  And he knows you well enough to recognize when you’re being less than honest.  He has never lied to you, nor has he ever lied to himself. Perhaps it’s why you love him.  Jamie doesn’t deserve your lies.  Jamie doesn’t deserve you. 

He deserves better.


	2. The Color of Envy

“What do professors even do on a Friday night when there’s no work to be done?” asked Teddy, of no one in particular, pushing away his half-eaten steak and kidney pie at the staff table.

He was seven weeks into his first semester as Hogwarts’ new Transfiguration professor, and for once, he could actually relax on the weekend.  He was finally unpacked, had finished marking homework for now, had given all his students until Wednesday to complete assignments, and had his lesson plans devised for the next week.  It was an odd feeling, being idle after having been so heavily laden with work from the start. Teddy had no idea what to do with himself. 

At twenty-three, he was by far the youngest staff member at the school, and still hadn’t really acquainted himself with his colleagues, not that he could count himself as a contemporary amongst them. He didn’t quite fit. He was closer in age to the seventh year students than he was to the youngest teacher, Luna Scamander, the Care of Magical Creatures professor.  As one of the Potters’ dear friends, she was, by default, a friend of Teddy’s. In fact, she was godmother to all three Potter kids, so she was practically family.

Professor Scamander was sitting to Teddy’s left, and to his right was Professor Neville Longbottom – also a close friend of the Potters’. Both teachers answered the question in unison, but each had a very different idea of what the staff did to relax when off duty.

“Get plastered,” said Neville with a small grin.

“Self-reflection,” said Luna, somehow both thoughtful and wistful at the same time.

Neville downed his goblet of pumpkin juice and added, “One often leads to the other.”

Teddy knew this well.

He was surprised that Luna was the one to extend an invitation to go drinking.  “Some of us go to the Leaky Cauldron on Friday nights.  You’re more than welcome to join us.”

“Drinks on the house,” said Neville cheerily, “Pays to be married to the proprietor.”

There really wasn’t any excuse for Teddy to decline an invitation to fraternize with his colleagues over free drinks in Hogsmeade.  Still, he hesitated before accepting.  He glanced over at the Gryffindor table, where Jamie was holding court over his usual raucous cohorts.  James was a resilient boy, and showed no signs that what had transpired between them last week had affected him in any way.

 

In contrast, Teddy could still feel the ghosts of Jamie’s kisses for days, every time he stole a clandestine glance at the boy. He could feel the guilt of what he’d done, like fingers tightening around his heart.  That fateful night, he had let things get too far, and before he could stop the quickly escalating kiss, the damage had already been done. He had hurt James again, this time utterly shattering his heart with cruel rejection, and Teddy seemed to be suffering for it more than James. 

 

A girl, whose name had escaped Teddy, was hanging on Jamie’s shoulder like an accessory and he seemed to regard her as such. But it still made Teddy’s insides twist with jealousy that he had absolutely no right to feel.

“You know your charges are talking about throwing a party in your absence tonight, Nev,” said Professor Parvati Patil, who was sitting on the other side of Neville.  Apparently, Teddy wasn’t the only one watching the Gryffindor table.

Neville sighed.  “Bloody hell.  Again? I need to have a talk with Jamie Potter. This is getting ridiculous. Does anybody in Gryffindor have any respect for the Head of House anymore?”

“Oh, I think they do, Neville,” said Luna, distantly, “Which is why they behave when you’re here and misbehave when you’re not.”

“You are _so_ lucky you’re head of Ravenclaw,” Neville remarked to Luna, “What does a Friday night Ravenclaw party entail?  Solving crossword puzzles?” he teased.

In all seriousness, and somehow also flippant, Luna replied, “No, they get high on Ecstasy and contemplate the meaning of the universe.”

Teddy nearly spit out the pumpkin juice he had just sipped.

Gazing off into nothing, Luna responded to Teddy’s coughing with an aloof air, “Take it easy there, Teddy Lupin, I was being facetious.”

“Ted, you’re fairly close to Jamie Potter, aren’t you?” Neville asked.

Teddy coughed again, nervously this time, and tried to play it off coolly.  “I don’t know if I’d call us close, but yes, I know him.”  He underplayed their relationship, just in case.  Though nothing had been said immediately after the fact, Teddy still worried that somebody could’ve caught wind that Jamie had been half naked in Teddy’s bed last Wednesday night.

“You ought to talk to him, then. Ask him to refrain from throwing parties every time I pop into Hogsmeade.  He needs to set a better example as Head Boy.” 

“Oh.  Erm, alright.  I guess I could do that,” said Teddy, trying not to sound horrified by the idea of reprimanding Jamie, or speaking to him at all in light of what had happened.

“And then come meet us at Leaky. We’re usually there until around eleven,” said Neville.

“I’ll be there,” replied Teddy, with a little resolute nod.

 

~@~

 

“Mr. Potter, I need to have a word with you.” Teddy adjusted the Fedora on his head and deepened his voice, as if this would somehow give him more authority over Jamie. 

 

In reality, he knew that nobody really had any sort of authority over James Sirius Potter, this entitled seventeen-year-old who wielded his Head Boy badge like a crown.  But Teddy especially had no authority over him, for Jamie had never treated Teddy as anything but an equal since he outgrew the hero worship thing around age fourteen.  It was even difficult for Jamie to address him as _Professor_ and he had been speaking the title with dramatic inflections aimed to rile up Teddy since the summer.

This time was no different.  Jamie glanced up from the table and regarded Teddy with such a petulant sneer that Teddy wanted to pinch him hard the way he did when Jamie was a bratty little boy.  “ _Now_ , Professor Lupin?”

Teddy’s forehead furrowed deeply as he insisted, trying to be stern without raising his voice,  “Now, Potter.  Come with me.”

Teddy didn’t miss the way James rolled his eyes, nor the way his friends raised their brows suspiciously.

One of the girls at the table eyed Teddy lasciviously and purred, twirling a lock of hair around her finger, “I’ll come with you, Professor Lupin, if Jamie won’t go.”

Teddy pursed his lips and walked away without even checking that Jamie was following.  It was maddening how little respect some of the students showed him. He hated how his youth and his fair looks earned him so much negative attention, and he wondered if it were not the fault of his adopted family for setting a bad precedent by catcalling him when he was introduced to the entire school at the opening feast.

In the corridor, just outside the entryway of the Great Hall, Jamie and Teddy stood eye to eye.  The fact that Jamie was so damn tall didn’t make it any easier for Teddy to regard him as a child – he certainly didn’t think of Jamie as a child when they had kissed and he had writhed sinuously beneath Jamie’s very adult, partially clad body.  Teddy pinched the bridge of his nose to force the image of Jamie’s nearly naked form from his mind.

“What do you want, Teddy?” Jamie asked impatiently, “Am I not leaving you alone enough?  If I made myself any more scarce around you, I’d cease to exist.”

“Mr. Potter,” Teddy reprimanded shortly. “I’m speaking to you as a professor, and I expect you to treat me as such.”  This is probably not what Neville had in mind when he’d asked Teddy to talk to James. He probably thought that their familiarity would afford Teddy a little more pull.  But Teddy couldn’t help but talk to James as if they hadn’t grown up together.

“Excuse me, _Professor Lupin_ ,” Jamie drawled, and every spiteful syllable slashed at Teddy’s heart.  “What can I do for you, _sir_?”  Jamie’s tone was anything but subservient.

“Your Head of House is aware of your plans, and I’m here to advise you to call them off,” said Teddy, stiffly.

Jamie glanced to the side and scoffed. “Huh. Is that so?”

The more James bucked Teddy’s authority, the more firmly Teddy tried to force it upon him, though it felt completely unnatural to be speaking to anybody, much less his god brother, in such a way. “Professor Patil is also on to you, Potter, so you’re not going to get away with throwing a party tonight in the common room.  You’d be wise to adhere to the rules, especially as Head Boy, or actions will be taken against you.”

Jamie crossed his arms and straightened his back, fixing Teddy with a challenging glare.  Perhaps he imagined it, but it seemed like Jamie was taller than him. “Oh, and what are you going to do about it, _Professor_?” Then his lips curved into a wicked smirk that made Teddy want to smack him as much as kiss him. “Are you going to bend me over your knee and spank me if I misbehave?”  Jamie looked terribly amused – smug, even – at the way that Teddy seemed to squirm at the thought.

Reflexively, Teddy adjusted his hat. Perhaps the pink tips of his fringe could be hidden, but there was no hiding the blush that spread high on his cheeks. He dropped the stern disciplinarian act and spoke without pretense.  “Jamie, just cut the shit, okay?” he said with an exasperated huff, “If you know what’s good for you, you wouldn’t throw a fucking _party_ in the dorms tonight."

It did nothing to erase Jamie’s smirk. “You’re aware, more than anyone else, that I never do what’s good for me.”  He scraped the corner of his bottom lip with his teeth and practically purred, “ _Professor._ ”

That single word and the predatory desire in Jamie’s eyes sent a hot shiver up Teddy’s spine, and had him walking away flustered. "Don’t force Longbottom to have a talk with your dad.  That’s all I’m trying to say.”

As he stormed all the way to his staff quarters, he felt the vestiges of Jamie’s touch scorching lusty pathways across his flushed skin.  A cold shower was definitely in order.  After a wank, of course, just so he could get _Jamie Fucking Sirius Potter_ out of his system in a burst of hot, pent-up sexual frustration.

 

Later that night, Teddy drank a lot more than he should have and got plastered, as Neville had indirectly suggested, just to avoid that self-reflection which Luna had recommended.  Because Teddy knew what he would find if he took a good look at himself and he didn’t particularly want to see _that_ guy.

  

~@~

 

Everything hurt the next morning. Teddy caught the tail end of breakfast to ensure he got some coffee and some greasy eggs to quell his hangover. From the looks of the Gryffindor table, they’d had a late night as well.  Jamie looked worse for wear, but not so much hung over as wrung out. He couldn’t be sure, but it appeared that Jamie’s eyes were red – not in the way that one’s eyes are bloodshot after an all-night bender, but puffy and pinkish as if he’d been crying all night. But Teddy knew Jamie, and Jamie didn’t cry.

Being the coward that he is, Teddy tried to slip out of the Great Hall unnoticed, but Jamie caught up to him and cornered him, despite taking a disused corridor to try to thwart a pursuit.

“Where were you last night?” said Jamie, sounding much more like an angry parent than Teddy ever could.  “I looked for you.”

“I was out at the Leaky Cauldron with the other professors,” said Teddy, a bit annoyed that he was being interrogated.

“ _After_ the Leaky Cauldron.  Where were you?”  Jamie pierced him with an accusatory glare.

 

The horrible thing was, Teddy couldn’t quite remember what happened after he and the professors left Hogsmeade. All he knew was that he woke up inexplicably in Parvati’s bed, and neither he nor the Divination professor could recall how they’d got there.  But both agreed that the reason was probably best forgotten and never revisited. Teddy wanted to bang his head on the wall.  He was like a magnet for inappropriate bedfellows.  And now he could count them on two hands, which was two too many. 

 

“I went to bed,” Teddy huffed defensively.

“ _Whose_ bed?” Jamie pressed.

It was none of Jamie’s business, but Teddy lied anyway. He’d hurt Jamie enough. He glanced around, as if to ensure that they were indeed alone in the corridor, though he just really didn’t fancy looking Jamie in the eyes when he lied.  “My bed.”

Jamie took a deep cleansing breath through his nose, but it seemed to do little to calm him.  He muttered through gritted teeth, his anger simmering quietly beneath the surface. “You fucking liar.”

Teddy couldn’t refute without looking like more of an arsehole.  Jamie pulled out a scroll of tattered parchment from the back pocket of his trousers, tapped it with his wand, and said, “I solemnly swear that I am up to no good.” It was then that Teddy knew exactly what Jamie had seen on that scroll of parchment last night. He brandished the paper, showing it to him like evidence, though the evidence had long disappeared. 

“I saw you,” said Jamie, sounding absolutely wounded, “You fucking hypocritical douchebag.  Professor Patil is my dad’s age.  She’s, what, twenty years older?  You bloody work with her.  And you think _I’m_ inappropriate?”

Teddy sighed sadly, “Jamie…”  It seemed that no matter what he did, he couldn’t help but hurt Jamie, even though it was the last thing he wanted to do. How could he explain what he had done when he couldn’t even understand it himself?

“No, don’t you _Jamie_ me,” he snapped, “What _am_ I to you, huh?  Am I just some kid with a crush?  A student that’s hot for teacher?  Just fucking tell me, because I don’t know.  Shit, I don’t know who _you_ are anymore.”

Teddy opened and closed his mouth several times, stuttering, trying to find the words, but he had none.  “You’re… I’m…”

“I _love_ you, Teddy,” Jamie declared, with pain ravaging his quiet voice and anguish furrowing his brow, “That’s what I am.  I’m not just looking to fuck the hot new professor and carve another notch in my bedpost.  You _know_ that’s what Patil is doing, don’t you? Everybody that wants you just wants to fuck you.  They don’t love you like I love you.  So you think about that the next time you shag my Divination teacher.”

It was that moment that Teddy miraculously caught a reprieve from having to answer for his shitty behavior.  Neville turned the corner and acknowledged them both with a tired nod as he approached.

“How very good of you to bring this to my attention, Potter” said Teddy, loudly, just for show.  “Had this fallen into the wrong hands, it could’ve been dangerous.” He took the map from Jamie, who narrowed his eyes and dropped his jaw incredulously.  “I’ll lock it up in my office for safe keeping until we can return it to its rightful owner.” 

Neville glanced at the parchment and smiled with wistful recognition.  “The Marauders Map. I didn’t know that thing was still around.  I think it belongs to George Weasley.”

“I’ll deliver it to him next time I’m in Hogsmeade,” said Teddy, pocketing the scroll.

“Ah, thank you, Professor Lupin. It’s an important historical artifact. Good thing you turned it in, Jamie,” said Neville.

Jamie put on a proud grin, but Teddy knew he was just masking his outrage.  “Of course. The safety of my fellow students is of utmost importance to me.”

Neville smiled.  “You’re a good kid.”  He patted him firmly on the shoulder.  “I will conveniently forget that you and your classmates threw a party in the Gryffindor Common Room last night.”  He gave Jamie a little wink.  Even Neville let Jamie get away with everything – most people did. 

“I assure you, Professor Longbottom, that we adhered to all school rules at said party.  It was merely a celebration of Gryffindor pride.  Some pre-game cheer before the big match against Slytherin tomorrow.”

“Right,” said Neville with a little knowing grin. “A pep rally of sorts. Well, I hope you and your team mates rest up tonight.”

“Oh we will, sir.  Which is why the pep rally was last night and not the night before the match,” said Jamie.

Teddy bit back a wry grin.  And they say Slytherin House is the corrupt one.

As soon as Neville was safely out of earshot, Teddy’s grin disappeared. “I’m keeping this,” he said, patting the pocket holding the map.  “It’s doing you no good.”

“That’s what it’s for.”  Jamie rolled his eyes.

Teddy pursed his lips into a straight line, unamused. “You shouldn’t have it.”

Jamie shrugged flippantly.  “Fine.  Keep it. Use it well.”

Teddy didn’t miss the dark smirk on Jamie’s face as he turned to walk away.

 

~@~

 

Of course, despite his better judgment, Teddy used the map.  Jamie hadn’t made it go blank before it was confiscated, and Teddy didn’t know how it was done, so it constantly displayed the whereabouts of everybody in the castle. It had been practically burning a hole in the locked drawer of Teddy’s office desk when he pulled it out a few nights later.  And of course, Teddy looked for the set of footprints labeled _James S. Potter_.

He saw that Jamie was walking up the Astronomy Tower with Catie Finnegan, the arm candy who’d been hanging on Jamie last Friday night. Teddy’s insides felt like they were churning every time he glanced away from grading papers to check the map.  Jamie’s and Catie’s footprints remained very close together for the better half of an hour in the stairwell.  And when Teddy saw the same set of footprints practically superimposed on one another in an empty, disused classroom a few minutes later, Teddy was ready to throw up.

He became obsessed with checking the map every night. He was distressed to find that Jamie’s footprints showed up, more often than not, alone with the footprints of a different girl each evening.  And every day, Jamie grinned at him smugly – he knew exactly what he was doing. Payback was a bitch.

All the revenge sex that Jamie was purportedly having made Teddy absolutely sick with jealousy, and perhaps that’s what was intended. Or perhaps Jamie was sending a clear message that Teddy wasn’t wanted anymore.  Whatever the purpose, it was working to make Teddy feel physically ill. Surely, it had been as visible in the green tint of his hair as it was on his face.  His Fedora could only hide so much.  He couldn’t even glance at Jamie without feeling like he’d been punched in the stomach, because there was always somebody leaning too close to him, gazing at him too affectionately.  And every time Teddy looked at him, Jamie was looking right back, unashamed.

 

“I think a touch of mare’s milk might clear up that sour stomach of yours,” said Luna, quite unsolicited, one Saturday morning at breakfast in the Great Hall.  “I’ve some frozen in the cottage. If you’d like, I can thaw it. I like to keep it on-hand for emergencies.  The twins used to get colicky as babies and it helped when I supplemented my breast milk with it.  It’s good for all stomach ailments.”

Teddy blinked rapidly, unsure of what to do with everything Luna had just said.  Had he really looked so sick with envy that it appeared he had some sort of stomach virus? Was Luna really suggesting that he drink milk of a questionable expiration date that came from a horse? Were Lysander and Lorcan actually raised on the stuff?  Teddy glanced at the two peculiar blond boys at the Ravenclaw table – it explained a lot.

“Erm, I think I’ll pass,” said Teddy. “But thank you.”

“Suit yourself, Teddy Lupin,” she said with a small shrug, “Healer Saito stocks some stomach remedies in the hospital wing if traditional medicine is not your thing.  And of course there’s always a good cup of ginger tea.”

“I really appreciate it, Luna, but honestly, I’ll be fine,” Teddy insisted politely.

“Also, I find that purging one’s soul often relieves the inclination to purge one’s stomach.  You might consider confessional journaling.  Or visiting a muggle church – they have little booths for anonymous soul purging and they serve you wine and crackers.”

“Actually, I think I might do that. Talk to somebody, I mean,” said Teddy. And before Luna could offer her dirigible plum-adorned ear, he dashed from the staff table and out of the Great Hall, nearly tripping over a group of first-years on the way to the Headmistress’ office.

 

Headmaster Oglvie was still not fully recovered from surgery and thus his less-than-approachable wife was still serving as Interim Headmistress.  It took a lot of awkward explaining to get her to leave the office so that Teddy could converse with a certain portrait in private.

“I was wondering when you’d pay me a visit,” said Minerva McGonagall, standing primly in her resplendent green robes within the confines of a gilded frame, “and by the looks of it, not a moment too soon.” She narrowed her eyes with concern.

“I’ve been rather busy trying to live up to your legacy,” Teddy said graciously with a tiny bow of his head.

She scoffed amusedly, “You needn’t try to flatter me, Teddy.  You already have the job.”

Teddy admitted, “I’m doing my best to keep it, but I wonder if my best is not good enough.”

“And are you here for my assessment?” she asked, “Because I’ve yet to see you in action.”

Teddy cleared his throat nervously. “Actually, I’m here for your personal advice.  Though I welcome any professional advice you’re willing to give me.”

“Personal advice, hm?” McGonagall knowingly quirked a brow above her spectacles. “May I assume it has to do with that sickly greyish green color in your hair?” 

Teddy smiled softly.  “Your perceptions are absolutely accurate, as always.”

“Well, without even needing to hear what ails you, I can offer you this bit of both professional and personal advice: You will hardly ruin any child’s life by being less than an effective teacher. Transfiguration, as practical as it may be, is in essence an art form – not a life skill required for survival. If a child cannot master changing a teacup into a mouse, she will not suffer for it when she grows up. Don’t tell her that, but keep it in mind any time you doubt yourself.  You will find that your stress levels will greatly decrease.”

It was such simple advice, yet so perfect, and exactly what Teddy needed to hear.  “That’s…actually brilliant advice.  Thank you,” he said, smiling with such relief that some of the grey disappeared from his hair.

“I know it is, and you’re welcome,” she nodded graciously.  “You look much better already.”

Teddy grinned, a little bashfully. “Well, I feel much better.”

“Now, what shall we do about the green?” McGonagall tapped a finger upon her chin thoughtfully as she regarded Teddy. 

“Professor Scamander suggested I take mare’s milk,” he said with a small chuckle.

“Well, it is effective as a stomach antacid. But as a cure for jealousy, it is quite useless,” said the former Headmistress with a nearly imperceptible smile.

“How did you…?”

“How did I know?” McGonagall cut in, “It doesn’t take a genius, Teddy.  Green is the color of envy.”

“Is there even a remedy for that?” asked Teddy with a hopeless sigh.

“There’s never an easy fix for the worst of our demons. And envy takes a shift in perspective to eradicate.  The grass is always greener on the other side.  We always want what other people have.”

Teddy mulled it over in his head, nodding slowly. It made perfect sense, but did nothing to alleviate the jealousy that had been constantly poking at his insides. “So how do I stop wanting what other people have?” 

“Well, you can do one of two things – you can learn to appreciate what you do have, or you could fight for what you want. It’s the difference between being content and being ambitious.  Judging by the fact that you hold a doctorate degree at the age of twenty-three, I’d say you’re the latter.”

“Isn’t it wrong, though?  Isn’t taking what you want being selfish?” Teddy asked.

“Would you say ambition is wrong?” McGonagall proposed philosophically, “Is it wrong to strive for more? Would you call everyone in Slytherin house wrong for being ambitious?  Should you be considered wrong for earning a Ph.D rather than being content with a Hogwarts education?  Painting the issue with the brush of morality only creates conflict, which serves no one. If you want to get rid of that envious green in your hair, come to terms with who you are – there is no right or wrong way to be as long as you are true to yourself.”

Teddy was rather relieved that McGonagall was wise and astute enough to save him from the embarrassment of sharing the gritty details of his moral dilema.  He hadn’t even known how he would have explained it to her, had he needed to.

 

He took a long walk to do a bit of self-reflection in absence of alcohol and found himself by the Black Lake. On such a chilly autumn morning, he didn’t expect to find anyone else there.  But up ahead along the stony banks, he could see two figures walking together. Upon closer inspection, but still at an unobtrusive distance, he recognized them as Albie and his boyfriend Scorpius.  Rather than making himself known and greeting his god brother, Teddy hung back and observed the couple curiously.

For as long as they had known each other, Albie and Scorpius had been inseparable.  They were the most perfect couple Teddy had ever met.  He watched the two walking hand-in-hand, leaning close to share words unheard by anyone else but the wind.  When they kissed, pressing their smiles together, there was no greater example of love – each seemed to radiate with light and warmth and joy, and nothing else seemed to matter to them.  Teddy began to feel that terrible ache of longing and envy in his stomach again.

He saw in Albus and Scorpius what he truly wanted. He didn’t want to be content with what he had, which was a handful of unrequited desires.  He wanted to love, and to be loved in return, so all-consuming and completely as the pair before him seemed to love one another.

Love was just barely beyond his reach, just beyond what he allowed himself to feel.  Instead of fighting the tide, he listened to what his heart had been screaming all along, regardless of if being perceived as wrong.  As he closed his eyes and pulled his warm scarf tighter around himself, he remembered the perfection of Jamie’s kiss, and recalled what it was like to be awash in love – how _right_ it felt. 

And green gave way to brilliant purple.


	3. All Hallows Eve

It is the thirty-first of October when you can honestly smile again - A true smile, and not just a fragile façade to make everyone more amenable to the new teacher at Hogwarts.  You have Minerva McGonagall to thank for that. She helped you change your perspective and made you realize that you were putting more pressure on yourself than was warranted or healthy. 

But really, you’re smiling because of the boy sitting next to you.  You’re smiling because he loves you, and you love him, and you’ve just decided yesterday that you’re not going to fight it anymore. You know who you are, you know what you want, and you’re going to get it the _right_ way. 

You’re just Teddy and he’s just Jamie, regardless of your positions in the hierarchal structure of Hogwarts. Sure, you have the power to give him detention, but he has the power to make your hair a brilliant shade of purple and that eradicates any sort of false sense of authority you have over him.  James could even argue, and you know he would some day, that it gives him complete dominion over you. He wouldn’t be completely wrong. You’ll do anything for this boy – it has always been this way, since he was born and you were six. But now you know that Jamie would do anything for you.

Maybe he’s brought you here, to this sleepy corner of Hogsmeade, to get you out of the dusty, old castle. You are certainly benefiting from some fresh air and sunshine.  Or maybe he coaxed you into coming out this Sunday afternoon to spend some time alone with you in the absence of any kind of pressure.  Jamie wasn’t putting you in a moral conundrum by kissing you behind a closed door where he wasn’t supposed to be.  You were just holding hands and enjoying each other’s company – _this_ was the _right_ way to go about things.

You could forget about the way it hurt to see Jamie with a different girl every night when you watched him on the Marauders’ Map. Perhaps he could forget how you lied to him and stomped on his already-shattered heart, the heart that you’d broken. But even if neither of you could really forget how you’d hurt each other, you could at least move forward now, rather than dwell in the mire of jealousy, despair, and unfulfilled desires. You’d forgiven each other. You could repair the damage that had been made.

So you smile like it’s Christmas and you’re certain that your happiness shows in every part of you.  And when your fingers lace with his, and you press your lips to his hand, you don’t need a mirror to tell you that your hair is bright purple – you see its meaning reflected in Jamie’s eyes. It might have been five seconds or five minutes, but time passes like molasses between you when you’re looking into each other’s eyes and speaking without words. 

You want to lean over and kiss him properly, but you refrain – not out of guilt or shame, but because it’s all part of your new intention of doing things the right way.  _Slow and steady wins the race_ , as the old proverb goes.  Not that this is a game.  You’re done with playing games and you dearly hope that Jamie is too. 

You are still gazing softly at one another when you finally break the silence.  “Any big Halloween plans tonight?” you ask.  It’s not just a segue into small talk - you’re genuinely interested. And as soon as you say it, you realize it could also be interpreted as the beginnings of an invitation. You panic slightly at that thought because you’re not sure what you’d even do with Jamie on a Sunday night that didn’t potentially balk at school rules.

Jamie answers with his own question. “Why do you want to know?” He’s not defensive. In fact, he seems all too pleased that you’re asking.

You give him a small shrug.  “Just curious. I’ve no idea what goes on at Hogwarts on Halloween anymore.  Neville said there’s some festivities and I’m exempt from supervising them. That’s all I know.”

Jamie seems to take pride in being able to school the newbie as he lists all the Halloween events of note.  “Well, if you miss the frog and choir recital at dinner, Lily and Albie just may murder you.  Al’s got a solo.  So that’s really the only thing you should feel obligated to attend.  Other than that, there’s the charity pumpkin smash, which starts in,” he glances at his watch and gasp quietly, “shit, one hour.” He jumps to his feet, effectively tugging you along by your joined hands, and leads you both in the general direction of the school without even asking you.  “That’s over by Hagrid’s hut.  A sickle per whack with a big-arse sledge hammer, and all the money goes to St. Mungo’s Children’s Ward.  After dinner is the costume contest, AKA, the Sweets Sweep – the winner is decided by who gets the most candy chucked at them by the audience.  And after that, all the extra sweets are collected and sent to the kids at St. Mungo’s.”

“Wow,” is all you can manage, “Quite a lot has changed since I’ve been here.”

“Yeah, I’ll bet it was a crashing bore on Halloween before I got here.  It’s all thanks to me that anybody has anything to do on Halloween.  I run the show,” he says smugly.

You quirk an eyebrow.  “There’s going to be a show too?”

“It’s an expression – do keep up, Teddy. Merlin, you _really_ have no idea what goes on at this school, do you?”

Even though he’s subtly insulting you, you are loving it, because right now you’re more like _Teddy and Jamie_ than you’ve been in quite a while. Only Jamie can talk to you like that and not make you feel like an arse.

He continues, holding his head high and strutting like a peacock down the pathway, “I instituted all of those activities, other than the recital – I’m sure that went on while you were at school, back in the dark ages.” You giggle, even though you hate being reminded that there’s an age difference between you. “The prefects all oversee the events, and since I’m Head Boy, all I really have to do is make sure they do their job and don’t fuck up.”

You are ridiculously impressed. You had no idea Jamie gave a shit about the school, much less the ailing children stuck at St. Mungo’s. And you think to yourself, _Jamie really is a good kid after all_. But any of those thoughts are soon chased away.

“After hours is when the _real_ fun begins.”  Jamie’s smile turns sinister, and you wonder if you’re about to be put in the uncomfortable position of being a professor and privy to some illegal activity that’s planned for tonight. 

“Do I really want to know what that entails?” you ask with a twist of your lips.

“Well, you bloody asked,” he says, dropping your hand to nudge your side with his elbow, just as you come to the path that leads from Hogsmeade up to the school.  You wonder if that was strategic.  You’re inwardly thankful that Jamie knows how to be sneaky – because even though you love him, you probably shouldn’t get caught holding hands.

He goes on, whispering scandalously, though there’s absolutely nobody else on the path, “The Ghost Walk. It’s a secret tradition that’s been going on for ages.  I honestly can’t believe you don’t know about it.”

“Oh _that._ Well, in my day, I was a lot more interested in studying than sneaking out of the dorms to chase after ghosts,” you admit.

“Right.  I forgot for a moment that you’re a huge nerd,” he teases.

You remember how coveted those invitations had been to go ghost hunting with the cool kids on All Hallows Eve, when the spirits were at their most restless.  You declined the two times you’d been invited because you were afraid of who you’d encounter – you didn’t fancy meeting the ghosts of your parents and crying in front of the social elite of Hogwarts.

“Anyway, my mates and I are actually going to attempt taking the secret passage from the Whomping Willow into the Shrieking Shack,” James declares, seemingly triumphant before it is even warranted.

You frown slightly.  “So you had ulterior motives in taking me to Hogsmeade, hm? Were you scoping the joint?”

“Yes and no,” is all he offers. This is Jamie, and you can hardly expect anything else, even though you’re starting to break down the barriers between you.

“You do know that the shack isn’t really the most haunted place in the UK, right?” you ask.

“Well, duh.  I know that rumor was started all because of your dad.  But that doesn’t mean it’s not haunted at all. A lot of shit went down there during the war.  People say the spirits that linger there are hostile as fuck.”  James doesn’t seem the least bit perturbed or dissuaded from his plans. In fact, he seems downright thrilled.

“How do you even know about that path?” you wonder.

“I’d always seen it on the Marauders’ Map, but I didn’t know how to access it.  Uncle Ron was a bit sloshed at a barbecue this summer and he told me some crazy stories about how he got dragged into the Whomping Willow by Sirius Black and ended up in the Shrieking Shack.  I put two and two together.  It wasn’t hard to figure it out.”

You sigh because it brings up all sorts of things that you’re uncomfortable with.  For one, you’re not too keen that Jamie is planning on getting up close and personal with the Whomping Willow.  Second, you’re horribly reminded of the legacy that your father left.  You know that the entire complex, from the murderous tree to the shack, was constructed for the sole purpose of allowing your dad to safely transition to a werewolf every month while he was attending school as a student and during his short stint as a teacher.

“Jamie, I don’t know if it’s a good idea,” you groan. “You don’t know what you’ll find inside that tunnel.  I doubt it’s been used since the war.”

“Which is why you’re coming,” he declares, leaving you no room to argue, but you do anyway.

“Absofuckinglutely not,” you say with a mirthless laugh because you’re dryly amused at his gall, “I’ll not be an accomplice. It could get me fired.”

“Not if you say you followed some shady-looking kids into the tunnel,” he reasons, “You could say you were just doing the responsible thing as a professor and seeing what they were up to.”

You scoff and pierce him with a pointed look, “And what do you think will happen to _you_ when I supposedly catch you sneaking around with those shifty kids? Hm, Head Boy?”

“I was also just doing my job,” he says.

“You’d sell out your mates like that?” you ask, raising an eyebrow.

“We’re not going to get caught so it doesn’t matter,” he says dismissively.  “Come on, Teddy. It’s going to be brilliant.”

 

~@~

 

Later that evening, you find yourself going to meet a small group of students at a safe distance from the Whomping Willow. When you approach, they don’t disperse like they should had a professor caught them out of the castle dangerously close to curfew.  And that’s because you’re not a professor tonight.  You’re a fourteen-year-old version of yourself, wearing a hooded jumper to cover your conspicuously colored hair.  As a metamorphmagus, you could change your face completely. You rarely did it, for it was against the law for a metamorphmagus to masquerade as someone else. But you’re not pretending to be somebody else, technically.  You’re still you, with softer lines and more youthful features.

You are not there for a bit of Halloween adventure. You’re there because you couldn’t otherwise sit idly in your staff quarters knowing that Jamie was putting himself in a very precarious situation.  But you’ll let Jamie believe that you’re there to have fun because you know the last thing he wants is a babysitter.

You walk up from behind and tap him on the shoulder. He turns around and is momentarily confused when you stand there, silently beaming at him.  When realization dawns it lights up his face and he gasps, dragging you away from the rest of the group to whisper with amazement, “Merlin’s tits, Teddy!”

You’re quite pleased with yourself and the reaction your innate ability had elicited.  “You didn’t think I’d show up looking like Professor Lupin, did you?”

“To be honest, I didn’t think you’d show up at all,” he admits.  He’s still gaping at you with wonder and you feel like you’re a child again, impressing your little god brother with your talent.  “Bloody hell.  You look younger than _me_.”

“I found a yearbook in the archives of the library and used my class photo from fourth year as reference,” you explain.

He eyes you up and down shamelessly. “Fourteen?  Shit.  You’re fucking _cute_ ,” he assesses with a little smirk, “I feel like a goddamn pervert.”

“Now you know exactly how I feel,” you joke, although you’re really not.  You’ve been attracted to Jamie since he was fifteen and you remember how uncomfortable you’d been with those feelings when he was so young.  At least he’s just a couple months shy of eighteen now and your attraction could be considered much less lecherous.

Sebastian Wood, Jamie’s best mate, comes over and claps him on the shoulder.  “If we’re all here, we should get going.”  He narrows his eyes at you.  “Who’s this?”

“This is Ted.  He’s a Hufflepuff who’s paying me a several galleons for the privilege of going on the Ghost Walk.”  Jamie lies flawlessly. You should be disturbed by how easily and effectively he can deceive his best friend, but it’s working in your favor, so you just smile and wave.

“Dude, you’re splitting that money with me,” declares Sebastian.

“Let’s do this!” shouts Jamie, and all the students rally around him.

The branches of the Whomping Willow are covered with red autumn leaves that flutter to the ground in the wind. If you didn’t know what it was capable of, you’d say it looked beautiful in the waning moonlight. You’re quite prepared to knock any of the students out of harms way, should the tree get violent, and you are certain it will.  You brace yourself and curl your fingers around your wand hidden in the pouch of your hoodie.

Jamie retrieves a Quaffle from the ground and everybody starts cheering him on.

Sebastian says, “If you miss, you’re going to thoroughly piss off this tree.  Don’t fuck this up.” 

Jamie raises a brow as he holds the ball in a single splayed palm as naturally as if it were an extension of his hand. “I never miss.”

You look on with utter confusion. Do they actually think they can stun the Whomping Willow with a Quaffle?  James approaches the tree carefully, quietly creeping towards it. The willow comes to life, raising its branches in a slow stretch as if roused from sleep. Jamie is getting way too close for your liking and you can’t stop yourself from following him.

But then Jamie throws the quaffle expertly at a knot on the trunk as soon as one of the lifting branches uncovers it. You hold your breath, ready to sprint if you need to.  The ball hits its mark, sending the group into a frenzy of celebratory hoots and hollers in praise of Jamie’s Quidditch prowess.  He turns around and bows, just as all the branches come drooping down. You gasp, believing that Jamie is about to get whacked on the back of the head, but you quickly realize that the Whomping Willow has been effectively deactivated, as if a switch had been flicked.

You smile and your fourteen-year-old self is swooning. You always knew Jamie was a cool kid, but you never really had the opportunity to see just how cool he was.

“Wait wait wait!” Albie comes running down the hill with Scorpius in tow and Jamie swears loudly. 

“Fuck.  How’d you find out?” he says, slumping his shoulders as if his little brother has rained all over his parade.

“We’re Slytherins.  We have our ways of obtaining classified information,” Scorpius says smugly.

“Besides, it’s the Shrieking Shack. You didn’t honestly think I’d pass up the chance to go?” says Albie, nudging his brother on the arm.

“You’re only in fifth year – you’re too young for the Ghost Walk,” Jamie mutters.

“What about _that_ , kid?” Albie gestures at you and you stiffen, worried that he won’t have the tact to keep it to himself if he recognizes you.

“He paid me,” is all Jamie explains.

You pull the hood closer to your face and you’re thankful that it’s so dark.

Your group of now eight is complete and you crawl into a hole at the base of the tree, one by one, with your wands lit dimly. Jamie leads the pack and you strategically take up the rear in case trouble follows you in. You identify each face as they go in as if taking attendance in class, again as a measure of safety. You’ll be the one to make sure that everyone that goes in comes back out.  After Jamie is Sebastian, and behind him is a Gryffindor sixth year named Morticia Montgomery, followed by seventh year Slytherin Steven Shen, then Ravenclaw seventh year Darwin Cruz.  Scorpius crawls in next with his other half close behind.

Albus pauses to stare at you curiously with narrowed eyes.  “Do I know you?”

You lower your hood briefly and then press a finger to your lips when he realizes who you are.  “Sssh!”

Albie giggles mischievously and you know your secret is safe.

  

Inside, the tunnel is cramped and just large enough to barely fit somebody crawling on hands and knees. You are on the verge of a claustrophobic panic for a moment, fearing that the entire length of the tunnel is this tight, but it soon opens up into a vast corridor, as high and wide as any of the passageways in the dungeons of the castle, and just as dingy. The walls appear earthen, but before you can start to worry about the possibility of a cave-in, you realize in the wand-light that the sturdy stone walls are just caked with dirt.

The thirty-minute walk is rather unremarkable. The tunnel appears to be completely uninhabited by any ghosts or even a burrowing animal. Just to make the walk entertaining, the students take it upon themselves to scare each other. The racket they’re creating could chase away any would-be lingering spirits.  When you reach the basement of the Shrieking Shack, you return to single-file formation to climb the stairs.

You’re at the foot of the stairs when you hear a sound behind you.  You don’t take the time to alert your companions before you turn to investigate the noise. You hear men’s voices echoing in the tunnel.  You think you’ve been caught, but you realize that the voices are merry.  From the sounds they make, you’d guess there were three or four men, joking and laughing.  Perhaps they’re a few stragglers who found out about the ghost walk and are coming to join the group.  You retrace your path through the tunnel to investigate further with your wand lighting the way.

And then you stop dead in your tracks. You can make out three distinct spectral figures coming down the tunnel.  You find yourself frozen to the spot, unable to run back to the shack to retrieve your fellow ghost hunters.  You were never really afraid of ghosts, but there’s something about these three that makes your spine tingle.  Your heart beats fast in your ears as they approach quickly, unaware of your presence.

But not for long.  “Somebody’s here,” hisses one of the ghosts. 

The ethereal figures transform into three animal shapes as they bound toward you, never touching the ground with their feet. As they come closer, it becomes evident that there is a stag, a large dog, and an enormous wolf. Your heart gets caught in your throat and your eyes suddenly sting with unshed tears.

You know exactly whose ghosts you’ve encountered.

Your extended arm shakes, holding out your wand to light the path of the approaching spirits, who snarl and gallop toward you, seemingly intent on scaring the life out of you.  But you’re not as afraid as you should be, not even when they come right up to you with menacing teeth and claws and hooves and antlers. You stand trembling, your breath hitching and erratic, unable to speak for fear of crying out, not in terror, but in despair.

The giant wolf howls right in your face and his ghostly breath is a gust of wind that knocks the hood off your head. And finally, with a small, quivering voice, you speak, and the tears roll silently down your cheeks, which have been leeched of color.

“Dad… It’s me… Teddy… Don’t you recognize me?”

The wolf suddenly morphs into the shape of a man, and you find the ghost of your father standing before you. And it kills you because he’s close enough to embrace, but your arms would just pass through his body like dust floating in stagnant air.

Remus Lupin covers his mouth to stifle a sob. You didn’t know ghosts could cry, but now you are aware of this fact.  “Teddy… My son… My dear boy.” 

You’re reduced from a twenty-three-year-old hiding in a fourteen-year-old’s body to a little boy.  “Daddy.  I miss you.” You crumble to the dirt floor as the sobs rack your body. 

He follows you down and lays an ethereal hand on your shoulder – it feels like cold air, completely incorporeal and gives you no comfort.  “You never knew me,” he says sadly, “How could you miss me?”

“I just do.  I miss you.  I miss mum,” you say through your tears. 

By now, you’ve lost the energy to keep your younger façade and your father’s companions have returned to their human shapes. James Potter and Sirius Black are standing behind and looking on with somber eyes.

“I miss you… And I miss her too,” your father admits.

“Don’t you see her?  Is she not here?  Or there? Wherever you are?” you wonder, confused about the whole nature of the afterlife.

He shakes his head slowly, sadly. “Every All Souls Eve, The Marauders reunite here.  And here, we are bound for the night.  I’ve never seen your mum. Not since I died by her side.”

You screw your eyes shut and they are swollen with tears.  You’ve no words to express how lost and hollow you feel in the presence of your father’s ghost. And to know that your parents were truly parted by death makes you feel completely hopeless.

“Teddy?” Jamie’s voice calls out behind you in the distance. “Are you there?”

You are quick to return to your feet and dab at your eyes with your sleeve, but it’s useless.  Your ragged voice responds, “I’m here!  Come back down the tunnel.  There’s somebody you should meet.”

When Jamie finds you, he already knows. He offers you a small, sad smile and closes his hand around yours. 

“Jamie, this is your grandfather,” you say, smiling just as solemnly as everyone in this gloomy reunion of sorts.

They nod at one another in silent acknowledgement.

“Looks just like you, James,” says Sirius, “And probably getting into just as much trouble,” he muses.

“Pretty much,” Jamie admits, noticeably humbled by the presence of the grandfather he never knew.

“Harry honored you, Sirius, with his son’s name,” you say, and you feel Jamie’s fingers tighten around yours.

“James and Sirius.  If ever there were a pair of more naughty boys,” your dad says wistfully, “And I can only imagine how you’re living up to those names, Jamie.”

You both can’t help but giggle at this because it is true.

“I take it Harry cared for you like I’d asked, Teddy?” your dad questions.

“He’s like a father to me.  I’m pretty much part of the family.  Jamie’s practically my brother.”  Your words are meant to reassure your father, but you feel Jamie stiffen slightly.

“You’re watching out for one another, then?” James Potter asks. 

“You don’t need to worry about your grandson. I’d do anything for Jamie.” Then you turn to the Potter in question and your smile brightens.  “I love him.” Jamie turns to face you with a look of both joy and astonishment on his face.  You pull him into your arms, press your foreheads together and whisper, “I’ve always loved him.”

When you tear your glance away from him, your father is walking away with his arms slung over the shoulders of his companions.

“See you next year?” you shout hopefully after them.

“See you next year, son,” says your dad over his shoulder.


	4. The Color of Seduction

It is a week prior to winter holidays when Interim Headmistress Oglvie drops a bomb on you. 

“I’m terribly sorry, Professor Lupin,” she says, not sounding the least bit regretful, “but as the staff member with the least tenure, I’m afraid this job falls upon you this year. I had planned on staying, but with Headmaster Oglvie still recovering from hip surgery, my attention is needed at home.”

You’d been counting down the days to your much-needed break from school, looking forward to putting lesson plans and essay papers behind you.  You didn’t have any concrete plans other than lounging around Gran’s doing a whole lot of blissful nothing. But it is still a terrible disappointment to find out that you’d be staying at Hogwarts for the two-week winter recess to supervise the small handful of students who’d be remaining. 

Jamie is perhaps even more disappointed than you to hear this news when you call him into your office after Transfiguration class.

“Two weeks?  I won’t see you for two whole weeks?” he asks indignantly, as if it had been a calculated affront against him.  He crosses his arms and glares at you from the other side of your desk.

You heave a long sigh and ruffle your turquoise curls the way you do when you’re tired in every sense of the word. “It might be good for us to take a little breather. Things are moving rather fast, don’t you think?”  You’re asking him more to try to convince yourself rather than to convince him.

He smirks and moves to your side of the desk. “Not fast enough.” He sits across your lap and folds his arms around your neck.  

Your whole body momentarily goes rigid because it’s the middle of the school day and you’ve never taken a risk like this. But the door between your classroom and your office is locked, you have some time between lessons, and Jamie is really bloody good at kissing.  So you allow yourself to relax enough to let Jamie have his way with you. He makes it easy for you to disregard the world outside.  You forget what day and time it is when his lips are working their magic on yours. You could be kissing for mere seconds or several blissful minutes – you’re not quite sure, and you are too caught up in his arms and in his mouth to check the time.

When you come up for air, Jamie repositions himself in the chair to straddle you, and you make a half-arsed attempt at responsibility. “Don’t you have to be in Charms right now?” you mumble breathlessly against his mouth.

He shifts in your lap to glance at the pocket watch that you’d set on your office desk, and the incidental friction sends a shudder of pleasure though you.  You know Jamie well, and nothing is ever an accident.

He folds himself around you again, and by the weight and heat of him bearing down on your thighs, you know you are in big trouble. “It’s Thursday,” he says around a slow, wet kiss, “I don’t have to be anywhere until eleven.”

You haven’t the heart to tell him it’s Friday. Apparently, you’re not the only one who is prone to kissing-induced memory loss.

“I’m teaching fourth year Hufflepuffs at eleven,” you say, more as a reminder to yourself than a deterrent.

He shifts again and your eyes nearly roll to the back of your head behind your closed lids.  He turns to shoot a lock reinforcement spell at the door and you’re glad he hadn’t witnessed how easily you had succumbed to him – Jamie is cocky enough without knowing exactly what he does to you. 

“I could do a lot of damage in thirty minutes,” he drawls smoothly, this time moving in your lap with purpose.

By now, he knows exactly what he’s doing to you, because it’s painfully obvious by the pink tinge spreading through your hair. “I am so going to get fired,” you groan quietly to yourself, resigned hopelessly to this fact, as Jamie slips off your lap and disappears beneath your desk.

You’ve fantasized about this exact scenario, but in your exaggerated fantasies, Jamie calls you _Professor_ a lot and his school robes are half undone.   By the calculated way that Jamie moves, you suspect he has dreamed of this too.  He’s regarding you with a mischievous smirk as he’s slowly palming the growing bulge in your trousers.  By the time he’s got your zipper down, there is very little room for reason in your addled mind, but there’s just enough to make you hesitate. 

“Jamie, there’s something you should know,” you say, trying to be responsible, but going about it in the most roundabout way possible. Because it’s terribly difficult to think when you’ve got a midday hard-on and Jamie on his knees eager to do something about it. 

“Let me guess.  You’ve wanted this for ages?  You’ve got a huge cock and you’re afraid you’ll choke me?”  He manages to be smug and funny and ridiculous all at the same time, and it makes you love him for all his smart-mouth arrogance.

You shake your head and roll your eyes. “No.”  And then you flash a little knowing grin because you can’t help yourself.  “I mean, maybe some of that’s true, but that’s not what I wanted to tell you.” You heave a resigned sigh because you know you really shouldn’t let things get any further. “It’s actually Friday,” you say flatly, “You have Charms in five minutes.”

But Jamie is undeterred.  “Fuck Charms,” he mumbles flippantly as he nuzzles his cheek against the tenting fabric of your underpants that’s protruding from your open trousers.

His eyes are the color of molten seduction when he gazes up at you and reduces you to a bundle of eager nerve endings. “I’m charming enough. I really don’t need lessons,” he says. Then he kisses you right through the stretched cotton.  It’s a little kiss – not more than a peck.  But it holds so much promise.

Unable to blink, lest you miss a second of your most outlandish fantasy being actualized, you heave a long, ragged exhale because you’d apparently been holding your breath.  “Jamie, we don’t have to do this _now_. It can wait until after classes, you know.”  Your words are saying one thing, but your body is saying _now now now, give me that beautiful mouth now._

Jamie simply smirks and says, “I know,” while his fingers hook into the waistband of your underpants and he frees your erection.

It’s almost comical how you spring forth from the confines of fabric.  But Jamie isn’t laughing in the least.  He’s drinking in the sight of you.  From the way he’s tilting his head curiously, you can tell that he had been conjuring this part of you in his mind for years, but had never thought he’d actually get to experience it. He slowly curls his fingers around the base and takes a single tentative stroke.

And that’s when you realize that Jamie is a complete novice in this realm. 

  

Well, not _complete_. You know that he’s no stranger to masturbation – he’s even sneakily dropped a naughty note or two on your desk while turning in his homework, regaling you with tales of self-worship and your influence on the intensity of his endeavors.  Just yesterday, you opened an intricately folded square of parchment after the Gryffindors left your classroom.

_You look so fucking hot today. Are you trying to kill me with that bloody waistcoat and your shirtsleeves rolled up? It is all your fault that I have to wank in the loo between classes, just so I don’t have to sit in Charms with a raging erection.  I’m going to think about you fucking me on the washroom sinks.  Just thought you should know._

_I love you, you sexy prat._

_\- Me_

  

You have written proof that Jamie has touched a cock before, albeit his own.  But you know that it doesn’t compare to the electric feeling of touching somebody else’s. You literally know first hand what it’s like to heft another man’s hardness in your palm – how it is both comfortingly familiar and excitingly alien.  You know the power you can wield over a man when you have his cock in your firm grasp, and the immaterial magic you conjure when you take him into your mouth.

 

You see the thrill of discovery shining in his eyes. You recognize the inherent apprehension that comes with inexperience, blossoming in pink shades across his face. And it makes you feel like a blushing teenage virgin all over again.

You cup his cheek in your hand and brush your thumb across his faintly freckled skin.  He’s so beautiful.  Despite the devious expression that would lead one to believe otherwise, you know that there’s an innocence about him – a quality of unmarred purity beneath all the peacock strutting.

“I mean it, Jamie,” you say softly, “If there’s a better time to do this, it can wait.  You don’t have to do it now just to impress me or anything. I love you no matter--,” but you don’t get to finish your thought because he licks a firm stripe along the underside of your hardness, never taking his eyes off yours, and the picture of innocence lost is enough to command every ounce of your attention. When he closes his mouth wetly over the head of your cock, you gasp quietly and involuntarily clench your fingers in his hair.

The gesture inadvertently coerces Jamie to take more of you into his mouth while his fingers move purposefully along your length. You don’t mean to be that arsehole who pulls hair when on the receiving end of impromptu oral sex – you are the sort of guy who sits back and leaves the reins firmly in the hands of the giver, regardless of what you want.  But it just feels so fucking slippery and hot and tight inside Jamie’s mouth that you can’t help holding on to his head and guiding him.  You both don’t have time to spare on leisurely exploration anyway.

You’d been fucking each other through your clothes for weeks now, frotting against each other under the cloak of shadows and behind locked doors, and you’d think you would be over the idea of taboo sex with your pseudo-brother.  But there is still a tiny lingering voice at the back of your head saying, _oh my gods – the boy you grew up with has your dick in his mouth_. You’d be lying if you said it wasn’t marginally weird.  The whole situation is just the right amount of wrong to make it more unbearably hot than prohibitively immoral.

His eyelids flutter closed while he slides down the entirety of your wet length, and that’s when you begin to truly fall apart. You don’t want to think about the reason why he’s so adept for a novice because deep down you know it’s because the rumors were true that girls had been queuing up to suck him off since fourth year – he knows what to do because he knows how he fancies it, and it isn’t much different from how you like it.  And _oh gods_ , you _really_ like it.

On its own, Jamie’s mouth is a wonder to behold – the voluptuous shape of his bottom lip, the way his top lip forms a perpetual sensual pout, the heavenly softness of it, the way the corners easily curve into a smirk even with just the hint of a smile – you’ve spent a lot of time over the years trying not to admire his mouth, and countless hours over the past few weeks worshiping it with yours.  Jamie’s mouth on your cock is an entirely different story.

Just watching those beautiful lips gliding fluidly along turgid flesh would be enough to topple nations, and you find yourself surrendering everything to him.  The feel of his mouth working you up ensures that you are wrapped firmly around his finger – you would gladly give him anything to sustain this bliss – your heart, your soul, a well-deserved O in Transfiguration.

His head floats on the waves of your surging and falling ecstasy, bobbing slowly when he finds the perfect rhythm that makes you bite your lip to stifle your moans. He swathes his tongue lovingly around you and hollows his cheeks on every rise.  Every time he slowly twists around your cock head before sliding back down, it makes you visibly shiver. Whatever he can’t fit in his mouth, he covers solicitously with his hand. 

You’re precariously close when you give up all pretenses of being quiet and whimper, “Fucking hell, Jamie…”

His brow creases and the vibration of his own rapturous moan radiates through you, letting you know that he’s loving this every bit as much as you are. 

He pulls off to catch his breath and whispers hotly against the tip, grinning smugly, “Are you going to come for me, baby?”

Everything about that statement forces an earth-shattering orgasm out of you – the cockiness of his knowing smirk, the ragged seduction of his voice, the way he makes you feel like you are completely _his_ when he calls you _baby_ – you answer with a shuddering moan as you spill over his fist and christen his pretty mouth with your seed.

He’s only mildly startled, but he smiles anyway, infinitely pleased with his accomplishment.  He giggles while he licks his lips and marvels at the awkward mess you’ve made of you both.  A breathy, quiet laugh of your own escapes you – there’s something so surreal yet gorgeous about the fact that James Fucking Potter, Gryffindor extraordinaire, has your come in his hair.

You’re ridiculously in love with this boy, and you have to admire him for his audacity – he has just accomplished his first blow job under the most precarious circumstances, on a school professor, underneath his desk, while students are rushing to their classes in the corridors.

You open your mouth weakly to tell him you love him around a panting breath, but he clears his throat and says, “Are we done yet, professor?”

“Excuse me?” you furrow your brow at Jamie’s sudden change in tone.

 

“Are we done?” he repeats more impatiently. “It’s 10:35.  Class ended five minutes ago.  Not that I’m having such a miserable time doodling in the margins of my textbook while I should be highlighting passages.”  His cheek earns him plenty of giggles from his classmates, but your mind is still fuzzy from your daydream to properly reprimand him.

You blink rapidly as you’re yanked from your reverie and find yourself propping your head in your hands on your desk in the Transfiguration classroom.  Your entire class is staring at you expectantly, having just spent the last half of the lesson in silent reading.

You sit up abruptly and adjust the fedora on your head. “Er, yes.  Class dismissed.  Continue studying over the weekend.  Test on chapter five on Monday.”

Your students are quickly on their feet, and in the scuffle of books and quills and robes, you put on your best authoritative voice to say, “Mr. Potter, a word, please.”

He hefts his bag over his shoulder and struts towards your desk with an arrogant smirk as the rest of the class swiftly files out of the room.  “Don’t worry, Professor, I already read that chapter and highlighted it last night.”

You stand from your desk and abandon your hat on a pile of parchment.  “Yeah, I’m aware,” you say flatly, “You were in my room when you did it.”  You do that tired hair ruffling thing as you say, “Jamie, I hope you’re not using that smart mouth on your other professors. You really ought to set a better example as Head Boy.”

He rests his hands on your desk and leans forward to drawl quietly, “I wouldn’t dream of using my smart mouth on any other professor but you.” A devilish smirk spreads across his lips and it makes you weak in the knees.

You shake your head with amusement and laugh. You hazard to lean close to whisper, “What are you doing later?”

He dares to let his lips brush the shell of your ear when he answers softly, “Using my smart mouth on you, if you’ll let me.”

You bite your lip, but a soft groan still manages to escape you.  “Get to class, Potter.”

He grins smugly as he turns around and walks towards the door.  You call after him, “Detention in my office, Potter. Seven o’clock.”

“Yes _sir_ ,” he says over his shoulder, flashing you a little mischievous wink.

You sit back in your chair and replace your hat over your curls, which are undoubtedly tinged pink at the ends.


	5. Wet Gold

“James…,” I started, sounding more needy than I’d intended. 

It didn’t matter that I was using his given name in an attempt at austerity.  The single syllable word came out all wrong – not a hard enough _J_ at the beginning and too sibilant of an _S_ at the end – not the way Harry would say his name, and certainly not the way his god brother should.

I pursed my lips.

Jamie was tugging up the front of his tee shirt before I could tell him it was a stupid thing to do.  Not that I would have said it in those precise, blunt words – that’s his department.  

“You didn’t have to… I could’ve…,” I struggled to speak in the wake of Jamie’s drenched shirt hitting the floorboards of my dormitory room with a wet splat.

“I know I didn’t have to come. But I’m here, so…,” Jamie shrugged casually before turning away to look out the window.

It was March in Oxford, too cold and not cold enough for straightforward precipitation.  The traffic signals on the other side of the frosted glass window seemed to twinkle, red to green, like Christmas lights left up too long, as sleet fell from the black sky - wet and heavy like the shirt it had ruined, wet and heavy like the secret that seeped out of my skin and soaked my bedclothes at night.

“Your weather sucks, Teddy,” he scoffed, as if it was entirely my fault.

“Perhaps it’s your timing that sucks,” I joked. I knew I shouldn’t. Any sort of levity would only encourage him, and it was bad enough that he was a half-naked sixth-year Gryffindor in my University dorm room.

He gave a quiet, faintly amused sort of snort. “Story of our lives,” he mumbled, then stared off into the blurry night outside the window as the traffic signal turned from yellow to red and held fast.

He stretched wearily with a dramatic yawn and brought his hands up to the back of his head, where he curled his fingers into the hair that was growing too long for his mum’s liking.  The subtle musculature of his arms and his shoulders glistening dully beneath the low lamp light made my throat tighten. The nape of his neck and his back were wet and I followed a rivulet of melted sleet streak down from his hairline, down his spine, and I imagined the cold droplet mingling with the sweat on his skin – I could taste the winter brine on my tongue when I screwed my eyes shut to try to clear the desire from my head.  

It was in vain, of course, for desire like this does not originate from the mind, but from somewhere more corporeal. I wanted to know his skin in ways that I’d never known before – in ways that _nobody_ had ever known before.

Jamie wore a thin chain that clung to him wetly. It looked like a gilded slit across the base of his neck, as if a surgically thin knife had sliced through his skin, revealing that he did indeed bleed gold.  I didn’t remember him ever wearing jewelry, and didn’t have the verbal capacity at that moment to ask him about it.

There were more important questions I needed to ask anyway.

“Why’d you come all this way? What’s so important that you couldn’t just fire-call?” I wanted to sound belligerent and outraged that he did some creative (i.e., illegal) floo-jumping to get from Hogsmeade to Oxford in the dead of night, but my vocal delivery betrayed me yet again.   “I’m sure Headmistress McGonagall would’ve let you use the fire in her office if it was an emergency,” I said softly.

James heaved a long, deep sigh that did horrible, i.e., wonderful, things to the muscles in his back.  He dropped his arms and shoved his hands in the pockets of his tight, wet jeans.  “That’s the thing, Teddy,” he began as he turned around to look at me with his storm blue eyes that shone with less light than a seventeen-year-old’s eyes should.

I already knew what he was going to say and I spun on my bare feet to sit down heavily on the bed.  I hugged my legs to my chest, buried my face into the flannel of my pajamas, and swore weakly.  “ _Fuck_ … When?”

“Couple hours ago.”

Just from the sound of his voice, I could tell what Jamie was doing, even with my crying eyes hidden in the fold of my arms. He was probably staring at me, unwaveringly, in that unabashed and entitled way that only Jamie can get away with. I could never hide anything from him, no matter how hard I tried.  He’d always look at the parts of me that would make others glance away uncomfortably – like staring at a slug sizzling on the pavement, entirely capable of doing something about it, but understanding it was beyond help.

“I would’ve come sooner, but it was more difficult than expected to sneak out of the school,” James offered more quietly than I’d ever heard him speak in a long time, “Dad was there and he would’ve, you know… noticed.”  He sounded almost apologetic.  The thing about Jamie is that he’ll never say he’s sorry for anything because he never really is.

I sniffled through an outpouring of tears and spoke into the darkness of my folded arms. “Thank you.  I’m glad you came to tell me.  You didn’t have to, and I appreciate it.”

I felt the mattress sink in next to me and heard the old springs creak loudly.  I felt Jamie close to me – somehow concurrently emanating the cold of the wet Oxford night he’d walked through to get here, and the heat of his warm blooded-body. I felt his arm drape across the back of my shoulders, and his lips press against the top of my head. I sighed around a bout of tears, relieved that Jamie was kissing me and holding me like a brother. But there was a tiny, disappointed, needy ache that originated from deep inside my chest, which I could not swallow further down.

Jamie may not have been one to say he is sorry, but he always found ways to express it when entirely warranted, at least for me. “I know you were close,” he whispered, and I could feel the warmth of his breath on my scalp. I faintly wondered if the blue of my hair had deepened enough to turn black.

  

When you grow up without your mother, you find a surrogate wherever you go, or you just become cold and angry and bitter. I never enjoyed being cold and angry and bitter the way tragic figures seem to do so in books and muggle films. One never has to look very hard for comfort, because motherly-types with bleeding hearts can’t leave an orphan unfed or un-hugged.  I have Gran. I have Molly.  I have Ginny.  I _had_ McGonagall.

But she was more to me than all of my mother-figures put together.   She was something to aspire to.   She’d always taught us that Transfiguration was an exact science, but she performed it like art. She took me under her wing and showed me I could do more than just fly, I could perform aerial masterpieces with my magic.

A large part of my grief over her passing was completely selfish.  I wanted her to see me graduate from the Institute for Advanced Wizardry at Oxford as the youngest doctorate in Transfiguration since she had achieved the honor. I wanted to see the gleam of pride in her eyes as she looked down at me, despite my taller stature, from above the rim of her spectacles.  And she would have done so in just three months, had her illness not taken her. It wasn’t a surprise – I’d visited her sickbed over Christmas holidays, and I knew her condition was terminal.

I thought I had emotionally prepared myself to lose my mentor, my idol.  Clearly, I hadn’t been.

 

I shuddered beneath the weight of Jamie’s love and turned to press my face against his chest as if we’d gone back in time fifteen years and reversed roles.  He smelled like spring.  Wet, like melting snow upon the moors of Godric’s Hollow.  Wet, like sweat and teenage musk and sex.  Wet, like the brine of tears and helplessness.  And all I wanted in that moment was to sink into this beautiful boy, become saturated with the wet heat of his flesh, and find my way home.

I cried in the damp cocoon of his arms for what could have been minutes or hours.  I cried to mourn the moments of solitary triumph that I’d never share with those who inspired it – my mother, my father, Minerva McGonagall.  Triumphant moments I knew James would have no shortage of. I could have felt jealous of him. I could have felt bitter. But I never have, and so I didn’t then.

I knew what I wanted to live for now – not to honor my parent’s memory, not to make McGonagall proud of her little protege. It should have been a happy, liberating realization, but it was unbearably crippling.

I wanted him - more than I ever had and ever should - this boy burgeoning into manhood in the springtime of his life, nearly at full bloom.

I kept on crying as I mourned for what could never be.

He fell asleep with his arms around me. It reminded me that it wasn’t the first time, though it was the first time in over a decade, just before I’d left for Hogwarts for the first time.  In the morning, I found that our fetal positions on the bed had somehow switched in our sleep.  When my eyes opened with the dawn, I saw the back of Jamie’s neck and the gold chain glinting in the sun that had melted the storm.  As he slept, I inched forward, careful not to wake him, and I kissed the nape of his neck. I felt the heat of his skin and the burn of hot gold on my lips. 

I whispered _I love you_ and I mourned the loss of those words as they died on my lips forever.

  

What I didn’t know then was that the scorch of flesh-heated gold would burn itself into me less than a year later, in the dead of winter in the Scottish Highlands. 

On Jamie’s eighteenth birthday, I gave him a gold charm in the shape of a tiny gilt crown and told him he was my lionhearted king.

I wanted him to wear the charm on his chain. He took the gold chain between his teeth and teased me with a smirk - like a fallen angel consuming his own halo. He gazed up at me with the tempestuous eyes, not of a boy, but of a man on fire. 

“Is this my coronation?” he asked with the sort of lilting, smug drawl that he knew could twist my insides and set me ablaze.

“Let me put it on you,” I said, smiling and blushing hard, my hair turning a pink hue to match my cheeks.

He turned around and allowed me to unclasp his gold chain necklace that he had never taken off since Ginny had given it to him on his seventeenth birthday last year.  It was a traditional gift of something gold for Jamie’s coming-of-age and the gold was impregnated with her protective magic. 

I inwardly noted that his hair was getting long again as I removed the chain.  While I was wheedling the tiny charm onto the thread of gold, Jamie was pulling off his shirt. I didn’t stop him. We’d been doing this for two months now – sneaking around Hogwarts, stealing kisses and heated moments in my office or my professor’s quarters, behind locked doors and silencing charms. We were beyond propriety at this stage of the game, with the freedom that a nearly empty castle could provide over Christmas holidays.

I looped the chain around his neck, clasped it closed, and glanced over his shoulder to admire the gold crown glinting upon his pale skin. The charm, however miniscule, weighed down the chain enough so that it hung lower on his chest than before. The crown rested on his sternum, next to his heart.

Jamie raised his arm to hook his fingers behind my neck and I folded myself around him from behind.  He wore me like a king’s ostentatious cloak made from the body of a rare animal.

“I love it,” he whispered, as he fingered the gold crown admiringly.

“I love _you_ ,” I whispered behind his ear, and felt him shudder against me as if I could really disarm him with three words.  And maybe I had. 

He sprawled himself naked upon the bed in my neat, private rooms – in blinding full bloom despite the winter that roared outside the castle walls.  Jamie was an Adonis hewn from gold and he fucking knew it.  This fact only made me want him more. 

The crown rose and fell upon the undulating waves of his deep, languid breaths as he watched me slowly divesting myself of clothes to join him.  I worshiped my glorious king with my mouth and moaned with ravenous need as he anointed my tongue with hot brine.  The crown jumped upon his chest with every pleasured gasp and needy twitch.

He beckoned me home, so hot and wet and perfect, deep inside of him.  Upon the first, world-shattering breech, I cried into his skin and the glistening beads of his sweat had a natural affinity for my tears.  I kissed his neck and tasted the metallic tang of wet gold.

The hitching of his erratic breaths grew more manic and shallow, and I worried that I was pushing him further than he could handle. I knew that, no matter how careful one was, the first time always hurt the most.

I pulled back and looked down at him. His hair was wet with sweat and clung messily to his forehead.  I brushed his fringe aside and saw that he was crying too.  But he smiled at me, and it was gold sunlight filtering through breaking storm clouds, and I knew his tears were coming from a very different place than mine were.

“I love you,” he whispered upon a quivering exhale.

The adoration in his eyes was so complete that it frightened me and only made me cry harder against the crook of his neck as I delved in deep and came hard inside him.  My hair screamed purple adulations that my lips could not properly express. My fingers tightened around his already-leaking arousal and it took just a kiss and a deft twist of my wrist to make him come with my name on his tongue.  After, we collapsed into one another, and as we rested in a tangle of limbs, I knew Jamie had seeped into the pores of my skin to infiltrate my bones. I would never be able to shake my hunger for him – he had become a part of me.

 

By the summer, I forced myself to believe that I could forget the taste of his golden skin and the honey-toned light of his hair in the sun as he flew to unfathomable heights upon his racing broom. I would let the words of love die upon my lips again.  I would deny that it was ever Jamie that I was living for.

Because James Sirius Potter really is made of gold; too brilliant to be kept selfishly hidden within a heart-shaped box inside my chest. 


	6. The Paradox of Time

Five years, seven months, and twenty-seven days.

This is the span of time that separates Teddy from James. 

When one is a baby and the other is a young boy, Teddy feels so much bigger than James – that’s because he is, in every way. The span of time that separates the two of them feels like a wide ravine. 

When James is fifteen and Teddy is nearly twenty-one, one is not much bigger than the other anymore. But Teddy still feels that age gap like a chasm that can never be traversed – it is enough for him to consciously put more distance between himself and the other when James confesses his love for Teddy. 

By the time James is seventeen and Teddy stops fighting the inescapable affinity between them, five years, seven months, and twenty-seven days seems infinitesimal – a mere trickle of water beneath the bridge they have built together out of their intertwined lives.

The age difference may be negligible at this point, but the fact that Teddy is James’ teacher, and practically his brother, cannot be ignored.  So Teddy treads lightly through the first months of their secret relationship because he wants to keep his job and James’ parents’ respect.  But even more than that, Teddy doesn’t want to screw this up. James means more to Teddy than anything, and he’d rather take things slowly than watch this relationship burn up quickly in a passionate fireball like all of his previous ones.

But after a while, Teddy gets really fucking tired of saying _no_ to James every time things get too heated.  He is undeniably susceptible to all of James’ charms, of which he has many. So one day he stops saying _no_.  It is James’ eighteenth birthday, after all. From then on, everything changes. Teddy and James are on the same side of the divide.  The time that had separated them ceases to matter, but now time is significant in an entirely different way. 

This is the paradox of time. 

With each passing day, time seems to pass more quickly than the next, like being in the narrow part of an hourglass, feeling the sand slip through.  Now, every second that they share between them is as precious as a diamond. Every minute they have together leaves them wanting more.  And time is swiftly running out.

 

~//~

 

It always starts like this. An innocuous kiss stolen in the seconds before the throng of Gryffindors pours into the classroom.

 

James is always early for Advanced Transfiguration, and Teddy can’t figure out how he does it – how he manages to beat his classmates to the room by at least two minutes. Because Teddy knows James’ schedule as well as he knows his own, he is aware that there really isn’t room for two minutes to spare.  And because James likes to be mysterious, regardless of the fact that Teddy knows James more than anybody does, James will never tell Teddy how he finds those extra minutes. 

It doesn’t really matter. Teddy has learned to accept that James will give him everything, whether he can afford to or not, as long as Teddy asks, and even when he doesn’t.  James is belligerently generous that way, if only to Teddy. He had been this way long before the moment he pressed an uninvited kiss upon Teddy’s lips at age fifteen.   If Teddy would let him, James would give him more than he can reasonably give, until his store of love is depleted.

And that’s what Teddy is afraid of – that James will give until there is nothing left, and will find himself alone and empty when he’s pushed out into the world that lies beyond the castle walls. Secretly Teddy is just as genuinely selfish as James pretends to be.  He wants to gobble up every kiss with ravenous abandon, wants to siphon away his time and keep him sequestered within his arms, wants to fuck him with insatiable need until the heat inside James becomes an insurmountable addiction. Teddy is worried about where that would leave them when the summer comes.

Teddy has to be the adult in this relationship because he can see the inevitable, and he thinks he knows loss better than James does.  James can’t possibly understand how devastating it will be when he’s gone. Besides, Teddy rather likes James this way – flippant, irreverent of limits, disregarding boundaries, living as if this heaven can exist outside in the real world.

So he lets James kiss him before class. He lets the wetness of James’ mouth and the sweetness of James’ warm breath scramble his brain in the seconds before Teddy has to be meticulously on point with Ravenclaw accuracy. He lets the heat of James’ fingers scorch his skin with phantom fire that lingers for hours of unfulfilled need. He lets James start what he can’t possibly finish before they have to swiftly break away and pretend that James is nothing more than a teacher’s pet.

Most days, James is a good little Head Boy, and will not do anything to exacerbate the discomfort that he causes. In fact, he is such a doll that he’ll even help Teddy power through those moments of fogginess by wrangling him back on point.  _We were discussing the intricacies of Owl to Opera Glasses Transfiguration, Professor Lupin…  You were about to give us the answer to number 9 on the exam review sheet, Professor Lupin… We are supposed to continue reading chapter 16 today, Professor Lupin… Here, let me distribute those hand-outs for you, Professor Lupin._

A part of Teddy wishes that James would just stay on beyond seventh year to be his teaching assistant, but he will never entertain that level of selfishness.  He would never dream of even putting that thought into James’ head, lest he stifle his growth.  For James Sirius Potter was born of fire and hewn from light, and was never meant to be anything less than the brightest star, shining spectacularly in the heavens amongst legends.

  

Some days, James is not a very good little Head Boy.  And those days start exactly like this – with an innocent kiss.

 

Today James is particularly early. James somehow affords to give Teddy an entire five minutes of secret affection in the office that lies on the other side of a closed door at the front of Teddy’s classroom. James is perched on top of the desk while Teddy is sitting on the wooden swivel chair behind it. James leans over and drops a sweet little kiss upon Teddy’s lips. Teddy is about to pull away to lean back in his chair and ask James about weekend plans.  But Teddy doesn’t get that far. 

James cups Teddy’s cheek and purrs, “One more, baby.  You’ve got time,” before stealing another.

Teddy can’t refuse when James calls him _baby_ , or when he speaks in that low, gravely entitled drawl.  And then it’s not about Teddy’s time or James’ time anymore.  _One more_ becomes a trail of several little kisses along Teddy’s jawline that lead to the side of his neck.

The hand that had been holding Teddy’s cheek tangles gently in his hair, and Teddy has even less incentive to move away.  How such soft, doting kisses could be Teddy’s undoing is another one of James’ mysterious talents. Now Teddy’s face is feeling warm and his skin tingles with anticipation that he can’t afford to have right now.

James’ lips part and Teddy feels his hot breath upon him.  Then James’ teeth graze the shell of his ear.  It’s not even a nibble, but it makes Teddy shiver, and James quietly laughs with smug amusement, deeply in his throat.  James knows exactly what he does to Teddy.  That fact alone makes Teddy twitch in his trousers.

Teaching is going to be very hard today.

As if that’s not enough, James whispers a confession that completely unravels Teddy.  “I woke up thinking about you this morning. Couldn’t get you out of my head. I’m so hard for you right now, Teddy.”

A hot shade of pink bleeds from the roots of Teddy’s hair and reflects in the color of his cheeks. He bites his bottom lip to keep from smiling stupidly.

“It would take only a minute of your mouth on my cock, and I’d be coming hard down your throat.” James murmuring filthy things into Teddy’s ear makes him forget his responsibilities.  _Fuck_ , it could make him forget his damn name if James hadn’t said it in that delicious way.

Restraint is not an option. James makes that clear when he leans back, parts the panels of his Gryffindor robes, and reveals a formidable bulge tenting the front of his charcoal grey trousers.  He presses his palm against his lap, lets out a barely audible, needy whine, and flashes a look of unfettered desire at Teddy that makes him melt.

James groans wantonly, “Look at what you fucking do to me, you bastard… without even touching me.”

Teddy marvels at the power he somehow has over this boy – James Sirius, Gryffindor Extraordinaire, the boy with a perpetual unimpressed look on his face, except when he’s looking at Teddy… just like _that_.  It’s that look in James’ storm-blue eyes that makes Teddy break; that vulnerable, desperately needy expression of love – love so absolute that it’s terrifying. 

Teddy crushes his lips against James’ filthy mouth and his fingers fumble with James’ zipper, and he doesn’t even have to tell James to put up a warding spell on the door because James is on it fast like he never doubted Teddy would give in.

James has a cock that warrants his ego and justifies his divine right to demand a blowjob from a grown man. He has more in his pants than is reasonable for an eighteen-year-old that’s always horny.  Not that any of James’ attributes are modest. He’s big, bold, and brash in every way, and Teddy loves it more than he should.  Teddy curls his fingers around James’ erection and gazes up at him with his lip caught between his teeth as he plies James with firm, steady strokes.

James is the sort of person that doesn’t get excited by anything.  At least, that’s what James would like everyone to believe.  For everyone except Teddy, James exists in two states: bored and coolly amused.  But when he’s alone with Teddy, James’ state of boredom becomes anxious impatience, and aloof amusement transforms into the most beautiful display of delight. James doesn’t need to play it cool with Teddy, and that fact makes Teddy’s chest tighten with the pressure of his swollen heart.  And here is where Teddy truly becomes aware of his power – when just a little twist of the wrist and the deft swipe of a finger over slicked flesh send James reeling and thrusting keenly through Teddy’s fist. 

“You have three minutes and thirty seconds.  But you’ll be lucky if I last that long,” James informs him breathily.

Teddy has to chuckle at James’ eagerness disguised as keeping him on schedule.  “I’m counting on you to watch the clock, so try not to watch me, yeah?”

“Three minutes and twenty seconds,” James hisses upon a deftly applied stroke, “ _Fuck_ , I’m already so close.”

Teddy rolls the chair back from the desk to give himself room and quickly goes to task.  The taste of James’ pre-come blooms on his tongue as he takes the head in his mouth and slides his wet lips down the shaft. He has become rather adept at handling James’ impressive length, and taking it down to the hilt is not as daunting as it once was, though he can still feel his throat begin to close against the intrusion. He probably doesn’t have to work so hard at this point, but he does it anyway because it always earns him such affectionate praise when he makes a concerted effort.

“ _Oh gods_ , Teddy,” James whispers breathily, “You’re so fucking gorgeous on my cock.”

These words work like an incantation, inspiring an erection of his own that Teddy won’t dare pay attention to right now, despite its insistence.  _This was such a bad idea,_ says the tiny voice at the back of his mind at the same time that his arousal is screaming, _I can’t get enough of James’ dick_. He twists around the shaft as he moves his mouth back up towards the tip. 

“Watch the bloody clock, not your cock,” he reprimands James with a smirky little grin.  Maybe Teddy is just a little proud of himself.

“I’m on it; don’t fucking stop,” James whines, “One minute and forty seconds.”

Teddy applies his mouth in a quick rhythm, winding greedily around the turgid flesh, and strokes what he can’t easily fit inside.  James is so deliciously hard against Teddy’s swathing tongue, so perfect in shape and feel and flavor, so fucking beautiful in all his engorged glory, shining and slick with Teddy’s spit.  He can’t help but hum approvingly, wishing time would just stop so that he could worship James the way he deserves to be worshiped – with deep, dripping wet avarice.

James’ fingers comb lovingly through shocking pink hair, and then suddenly tighten, making Teddy’s scalp sting with alarm.  “ _Fuck_ don’t stop I’m gonna come.” 

James doesn’t even give Teddy an alternative to coming in his mouth.  James is just that entitled and that confident that Teddy wants every drop. And in those seconds that pound like drums with the rhythm of Teddy’s heart, he feels an ache deep in his chest – he wants to take everything from James and this desire is so consuming and concurrently conflicting that it hurts.

James thrusts upwards, deeper into Teddy’s mouth, then stills as tension reaches its tight peak. Sweet-briny-bitterness explodes hotly on Teddy’s tongue.  James’ harsh, panting breaths are a song that complements the thrum of Teddy’s heart. Teddy takes everything as James _gives, gives, gives_. And Teddy is in frustrated anguish because he let himself get in too deep, and now this will never be enough.

Nothing will ever be enough. Not now, not ever. Teddy wants James so completely, so absolutely, so urgently that he loses all other purpose but to love James.

The muffled sound of voices burns through the fog of lust, and Teddy becomes painfully aware that he has run out of time.  James’ chest is heaving and he is whispering swear words and slowly releasing his white-knuckle grasp on Teddy’s hair.

“Negative twelve seconds…” James pants out.

Teddy pulls away from James’ still firm prick, leans over the rubbish bin beside his desk, and spits out the remnants of James’ essence that he hadn’t managed to swallow – it had been a lot more than he could handle.  He’s still got a raging hard-on and James’ come still clinging sourly to his tongue. He looks much too obscene to present himself as a responsible adult to a classroom full of teenagers.

He reclines in his chair and dabs the corner of his mouth with the back of his hand. “I need a minute,” he says with his eyes cast downward in shame.

James hops off the desk and stuffs himself back into his trousers with effort.  “Same,” he replies. 

Then his finger hooks under Teddy’s chin. “Hey, you alright?” James asks with noticeable concern.

Teddy gazes up at James with eyes that are still the color of deep violet desire.  “I can’t go out there.  I’m a mess,” he answers quietly, so disappointed in himself that it renders his voice to that of a disgraced wretch.

“ _You’re_ a mess?” James asks incredulously as he struggles to zip up his trousers. “Shit, I just busted a nut. I can barely stand.” 

“I’m sorry,” Teddy mumbles somberly, “I shouldn’t have done that.  It was horribly irresponsible of me.”

“Hey,” James whispers affectionately, holding Teddy’s face in his hands.  “Don’t beat yourself up.  It was brilliant. Nobody’s going to bloody care that you start class a few minutes late.”  James presses soft, reassuring kisses upon Teddy’s lips.  “I love you.”

Teddy sighs against James’ mouth. “I love you too.”

They stay like this for a few heavy seconds, struggling to catch their breath while stealing kisses between panting.

“You’re helping, but you’re also not helping,” Teddy admits. 

They both glance down at Teddy’s persistent erection poking at the front of his trousers.

“Damn, that looks good,” James mutters, letting his tongue brush over his bottom lip before catching it between his teeth, which also does not help Teddy.

Teddy flashes him a warning glare. “Don’t you dare, Jamie.”

James puts his hands up in surrender. “I’m won’t, I swear.” He moves back and steps around to the other side of the desk and begins to make random, unrelated statements. “Your gran in a saggy swimming costume. Pubic hair clogging the shower drain. Albie snogging that blond kid.”

Teddy gives him a sideways glance as he rises from his chair and adjusts the front of his trousers. “What are you on about?”

“I’m making you forget about your dick, dumb-arse,” James explains as if it had been terribly obvious. “A room full of dead babies. A room full of Slytherins. Professor Slughorn’s cabbage breath. My mum’s cooking.”

Teddy just has to laugh. “I’m meant to be distracted from thoughts of _you_ by thinking about things you find distasteful?  You’re adorable.”

“I’m really not helping, am I?” James’ question is more of a resigned statement.  Teddy shakes his head. As the sound of students filling the room on the other side of the door becomes a significant din, James slicks back his hair and proposes, “You trust me, yeah?  Let me handle this.  Stay here.”

Teddy reaches his hands out in alarmed protest, but James is already slipping through a very narrow opening he makes in the doorway.  Teddy hides behind the door with his fingers on the knob, ready to spring out and put a stop to any nonsense that will very likely ensue.  He’s also just a little mortified that James might slip up and say something that would raise suspicion.

But this is James, and the Head Boy didn’t become the most popular boy at school on the merit of his looks or his name.  James is terribly charismatic and persuasive all on his own, without needing to ride on his father’s coat tails.

Through the door, Teddy hears James addressing the class in that voice he puts on when he’s trying to be authoritative while still looking cool.  “Okay listen up.  Shut it for a second, everybody. I’m pleased to announce that Lupin’s got a massive migraine and can’t make it to class.”

The class erupts in celebratory hoots and feigned disappointed laments. Teddy’s eyes go wide and he gasps audibly deep in his throat.  He is about to burst into the room and reprimand James for being a prankster, but then James continues.

“Don’t get your cocks out just yet. He’s left an assignment for us. We are to read chapter 22 and write an essay detailing the problems that may arise with Non-edible to Edible Transfiguration, due by the end of the hour.”

Teddy grins.  He’s so impressed and in love with James that he could swoon. He bites back a giggle as the class groans in protest.

“Calm your tits, it’s just a bloody essay. Would you rather listen to an hour-long lecture on the topic?  I thought not.”

This should offend Teddy, but he’s still giddy like a schoolboy skiving off classes.

“Alright, get to work. I’m going to be in Lupin’s office grading tests for him, so nobody be a wanker, yeah?”

“Teacher’s pet,” somebody calls out in a singsong, mocking voice.

James laughs.  “Sod off, Sebastian.  You wish you were me.”

When he returns to the office, Teddy and James laugh behind their hands.  This feels like the mischief they would get up to when they were kids. Teddy wants to hang on to the wistful nostalgia of reliving their shared childhood while their present reality pokes bluntly, obstinately at the back of his mind.

“You’re bad,” Teddy says before biting his lip, trying to keep from smiling and reinforcing James’ terribly risky behavior.

“I’m a good boy,” James drawls, cornering Teddy with just the force of his sultry voice and his smug demeanor. “You heard Wood. I’m the teacher’s pet.” His palm finds the persistent bulge at the front of Teddy’s trousers.

Teddy takes a steadying breath and closes his eyes, lest he allow James’ seductive stare to persuade him. “You’re not the teacher’s pet.”

He feels James’ breath ghosting his jaw. “Yeah?  Well, who am I, then?  What am I to you?” 

This is more than flirtation. James is challenging Teddy to define what had been undefined since it began.  But Teddy won’t define it.  Once a name is put on it, their relationship comes with expectations and restraints. He can’t do that to himself or James when the future holds no hope for them.

Teddy replies hesitantly, “You’re my… my Jamie.”

“Fucking right, I’m yours,” James asserts quietly as his fist curls into the front of Teddy’s shirt, “And I just bought you an hour with which you can do whatever you please with me.”

Then James’ mouth is all over Teddy’s and he can’t bring himself to make him stop because James tastes like immortality and sin and home.  James breaks the kiss just briefly enough to flick his wand at the door, likely to replace the wards and put up a silencing charm. 

“Jamie…” His name comes out as a shuddering sigh.  “We probably shouldn’t.” Teddy’s protest is half-arsed at best. The resurgence of his arousal and the return of James’ mouth are both effectively quieting that stubborn voice of reason.

The desk reprises its role in another obscene tableau. James is bent over the parchment-strewn surface with his robe and jumper discarded on the floor, his shirt pushed up to the small of his back, and his pants and trousers hanging down by his knees.  This is the filthy picture that has plagued Teddy’s fantasies long before their first kiss. It is a dream riddled with guilt and shame – and now that it’s come to life, Teddy can’t help but feel the same way. So even when he’s swiftly unbuckling his belt and taking out his aching cock, he does it with trepidation that runs deeper than the fear of getting caught.

This is the fear of ruining everything. The fear of besmirching what little innocence James has left.  The fear of their relationship becoming all about sex and not about love. The fear of becoming that dirty, old pervert fucking a boy five years, seven months, and twenty-seven days younger.

And James makes it damn impossible to practice restraint of any sort. He’s so delicious and dirty that it would inspire the most virtuous man to sully himself with hot, sweaty, iniquity. James puts two fingers in his mouth and they come out shining wet.  He runs those fingers against his blushing hole in a vulgar presentation and moans imploringly, “Fuck me, Teddy.”

Teddy can’t help but _take, take, take_ despite his internal moral dilemma. James is so invitingly tight and warm as Teddy sinks in deep.  Teddy has to pause and admire the obscene beauty of their bodies joined so intimately. While he’s in to the hilt with his fingers splayed over James’ quidditch-perfected arse that’s unbelievably all _his_ , he has to will his hips to keep still just so he can commit this to memory and save it for the lonely days that are to come.

James is always impatient and needy. When he wants something, he wants it _bad_ and he wants it _now_.  It has always been this way, and Teddy has always been compelled to give it to him. “Please,” James keens softly.

This isn’t making love - at least it doesn’t feel pure enough to be that wholesome.  But that’s not what either of them wants now. Not when they’re rushed, not when everybody on the other side of the door would never understand. This is _fucking_ , hard and fast, with skin-smacking force at an anxious pace, in a gasping race to get off.  If Teddy needed to justify it, and really he doesn’t right now, he could say that they will do it sweet and slow some other time, when they have the privacy and hours to spend on languid love making.  But really, neither of them know this for sure.  This could be their last.

It will end sooner than they both want, like a harsh reflection of their entire relationship.  Teddy feels it approaching quickly like an unstoppable, brutal, inevitable force.  Teddy pulls back slowly, savoring the wet slide.  He holds on to James’ hips so hard that the skin beneath his fingers blanches. He presses in just beyond the head, pulsing shallowly, knowing that if he does this _just right_ , he’ll hit that spot inside of James that’ll send him to heaven.

James glances over his shoulder, furrowing his brow.  “Don’t tease me, you fucking bastard,” he whispers petulantly.

Teddy can only smirk. He applies a series short, precise, upwards thrusts that make James screw his eyes shut and swear.  Before Teddy can prevent it, James’ come splatters the papers on the desk.  Teddy panics, but is too far gone to do anything about it, for his release follows quickly in a violent surge of blinding bliss. 

The world goes too bright white behind his closed eyelids and Teddy knows, without a doubt, that he will always want this – he and James conjoined and stupidly in love, forever. And it hurts more intensely than the perfect pleasure that James gives him. 

 

There will be a time, mere days from now, when James will lie naked beside Teddy in his private quarters, panting, and more spent than he is now.  Shining in the tempestuous blue of his eyes, will be _that look_ – that look of love that is absolute and unwavering. He will breathlessly speak the words that Teddy is most afraid of hearing.

“I will always be yours.”


	7. The Color of Icing Sugar

Professor Ted R. Lupin, Hogwarts’ new Transfiguration teacher, wakes before dawn on the thirtieth of April, another year older.

It’s still dark outside the stained glass windows of his private quarters and the whole castle is still wrapped in tranquility and slumber.  Teddy isn’t quite ready to wake up, and on a normal day, he’d go right back to sleep. But it isn’t a normal day – Teddy had become quite aware of that the moment somebody stirred beside him in his bed.

While all the students are nestled safely in their four-posters, tucked away behind the curtains of their respective house colors, dreaming of things both lovely and horrible that children oft dream about, there is one boy who is out of his bed.

You see, James Sirius Potter is not in his own bed, but in Teddy’s.  And if he’s going to get away with sleeping in a professor’s room, he needs to creep back to Gryffindor Tower before the school awakes.  He’s been sharing Teddy’s bed at least three times a week since October. Obviously, he’s never been caught – not even close.  Being Head Boy certainly has its advantages.

When James wakes up to the vibration of his enchanted wristwatch, he’s usually courteous enough to sneak away soundlessly so as not to rouse his companion, who doesn’t get nearly enough sleep as it is, _poor thing_. But today, James doesn’t slide out from under the warm nest of goose down bed covers – he slides deeper beneath them, his head disappearing from the pillow that he shares with Teddy.

Teddy is barely conscious when he feels James’ hand slip into the front of his pajama bottoms.  He’s brought fully and blissfully out of the arms of slumber when James’ lips wrap around his awakening need.  Teddy hasn’t opened his eyes yet.  He’s picturing what James’ smart mouth looks like gliding along his hardening length and it puts a sleepy little smirk on his lips.

The mourning doves that roost on Teddy’s windowsill begin to coo, signaling dawn’s first light.  But Teddy won’t rush James today, even if they are treading on dangerous territory.  He trusts that if James is caught in the corridors at this obscenely early hour so far from the Gryffindor dorms, he’ll be able to charm his way out of trouble, just like the way James is charming Teddy out of his pajamas.

Teddy groans quietly with disappointment when James’ mouth comes off with an unheard, wet pop.  James’ head peeks out from the top of the bedcovers as he climbs onto Teddy and straddles him at the waist.  James’ hair is an endearing mess and it inspires Teddy to tangle his fingers in it as they kiss languidly, as sluggishly as this time of day deserves.  Teddy tastes the bitter sweetness of his own pre-come on James tongue and it makes him growl softly, deep in his throat.

Teddy suspects that James has been awake a lot longer than he thought, because he’s somehow already naked and slicked wet in all the right places.  Their morning erections slide fluidly against each other with every sinuous movement of James’ hips. With a few deft movements, James takes Teddy inside of him as easily as somebody who’s been doing this for a lot longer than James has.  The delightful tightness of James body is a heavenly reminder of what a novice James really is, albeit a precocious one.  Before the sun peeks out from behind the hills of the Scottish Highlands, Teddy is getting the birthday fuck of his life, much sooner in the day than he had expected.

James grinds down hard on a particularly forceful upward thrust and moans throatily into the crook of Teddy’s neck. “ _Fucking hell, Teddy.”_  

Teddy tries to quiet him with a whispered, hush, but it’s no use.  James does what he wants, when he wants, how he wants, regardless of the consequences. It matters little that it’s Teddy’s birthday – not that this is the least bit unpleasant for Teddy.

“You’re a motherfucking beast for an old geezer,” James purrs, eliciting breathy giggles between them.

James sits up to drive them hard and fast towards the inevitable.  Teddy raptly watches James’ bliss spilling out through his own tight fingers. James’ fringe falls in a shamble of sweat-dampened strands over chestnut eyes that stare down into Teddy’s soul.  In those eyes, Teddy sees love and lust and everything in between, and it makes his heart swell enough to burst.  James is beautiful and vulnerable and divine and immortal and absolutely _his_ in this moment. 

Teddy knows that James would give him everything if only Teddy would allow it.  He digs his fingertips into James’ hips and gives him as much as he can until he’s spent. Teddy wonders if it will ever be enough.

  

Teddy is still blushing at breakfast, the pink tinge of his cheeks reaching all the way to the tips of his fringe as he steals a glance from his lofty position at the staff table in the direction of the Gryffindors. James, bold as ever, raises a challenging brow and mouths the words, _What are you looking at?_ with the sort of expression that says he knows exactly what Teddy is looking at.  Teddy bites his bottom lip to keep from giggling.

Birthdays never pass unnoticed in Hogwarts. Not when each one is acknowledged at the morning announcements.   Head Master Ogilvie makes a bigger deal of Teddy’s twenty-fourth than Teddy would like. As it is, he gets enough unwanted attention as Hogwarts’ youngest, least tenured, i.e., least broken-in professor.

Whenever a birthday is celebrated, the headmaster leads the school in a chorus of _Happy Birthday To You_.  Professor Lupin is afforded the same ‘privilege’ this morning, much to his humiliation - Because, he’s not just amongst colleagues and students, he’s amongst his adopted family. And when somebody in the Potter-Weasley clan has a birthday, they get ‘treated’ to a modified version of the song.

James stands up at the head of the Gryffindor table, rouses the entire Great Hall to their feet, and leads the loud, raucous chorus to ‘honor’ Teddy’s birthday.  Teddy’s hair deepens to a miserable shade of humiliated magenta.

_Happy birthday you tool_

_Happy birthday you tool_

_Happy birthday dear wanker_

_Happy birthday you tool_

For as long as Teddy can remember, the Weasleys and Potters have gotten away with singing this rather rude song by virtue of family tradition and brotherhood.  Who in their right mind would deny the children of the heroes of the wizarding world a light-hearted, albeit obnoxious, song?

Teddy tries to look grateful with a humble smile and a gracious little wave.  In a sense, he is grateful.  His job would be a lot harder if he was not surrounded by the people who have always loved him. It’s just so damn embarrassing to endure the Potter-Weasley brand of love when Teddy is trying desperately to gain respect as a teacher.

Come lunchtime, it becomes apparent that Teddy’s birthday is going to be an all-day ordeal.  Teddy fields an alarming amount of birthday wishes and cards from people he never expected to extend such kind gestures, let alone care at all whether or not the Transfiguration professor had a good day.  Most notable are the Slytherins.  He’d never been able to shake the feeling that Hogwarts’ most cunning would like to devour him.  Teddy wonders if Albus is behind today’s reprieve from Slytherin sass.

At dinner, James sits at his rightful place in the Head Boy’s seat at the staff table, between the Head Girl and Teddy. Teddy plops down into his chair with a weary sigh.

He leans close to James, but not too close, and mutters, “Gods, turning twenty-four is hard.  I feel impossibly tired and impossibly old.”

James replies with a sage nod. “Right. It’s your advanced age. Your exhaustion has nothing to do with your early morning activities.”

Teddy snorts a laugh and then glances nervously at the other professors, worried that he and James seem more like school mates than professor and student.  Teddy often wonders if he is trying too hard to appear older and wiser. His colleagues don’t even look up from their meals or turn away from their own conversations.

Teddy lowers his voice and asks, “Were those _early morning activities_ my birthday present then?  Or can I expect more later?”

James smirks and replies with a question of his own, “I don’t know – can you handle it, old man?”

Teddy’s hand slips beneath the table to rest furtively on top of James’ thigh.  He whispers, hoping that his closeness to James’ ear does not appear too intimate, “Just being alone with you is a gift.” 

“While I admit that I am indeed a gift from the gods, you’re getting a proper present, Teddy.”  The devious grin on James’ lips both intrigues and worries Teddy.

During pudding, a large cake, decorated with an abundance of icing sugar swirls to match Teddy’s turquoise curls, appears at the center of the staff table where Ogilvie usually sits. There are more candles than Teddy’s age warrants, and he wonders if it was an aesthetic decision by the elves, a diplomatic decision by the Head Master (to keep Teddy’s age vague), or a subtle joke.

Teddy bows his head humbly in thanks as color blooms high on his cheeks again.  The birthday song is sung yet again, this time with the Potter-Weasley rendition drowning out the traditional one.  Teddy blows out a few candles ceremoniously and puts out the rest with his wand, for he hasn’t enough breath to extinguish the lot. 

He turns to the Head Master and says, “Thank you, sir. You really didn’t have to. But I am grateful that you did. You’ve done so much to make me feel welcome at Hogwarts.”

Head Master Ogilvie puts a hand on Teddy’s shoulder and chuckles.  “If only I were so thoughtful!  I can’t take the credit, but I will take a slice.  You have the Head Boy to thank for the cake, not me.” 

Teddy glances down the staff table to find James grinning proudly.  There’s enough cake for everyone that wants it.  Teddy returns to his seat next to James with a slice for each of them.  It’s vanilla sponge cake with butterscotch pudding inside - Teddy’s favorite. Of course, James would know that. But the real present is watching James slowly lick the blue icing sugar off his finger as a reminder of their _early morning activities_ , or perhaps a tease of what’s to come.

Much later, after James has finished his rounds and Teddy has corrected as much homework as his perpetual exhaustion allows, they’ll steal away to Teddy’s private quarters.  James will kiss him softly and Teddy will taste the lingering hint of butterscotch on James’ tongue.  He’ll thank James for the cake by divesting himself of his clothes and draping himself over James’ equally nude form.  They will kiss unhurriedly and roll against one another and make slow, lazy, friction.  But they’ll fall asleep before they get very far.

Teddy will feel closer to James than he ever has before, nestled in James’ arms, wrapped up in his love.  He will dream of a hundred candles - each candle, a year with James.  Years of unbreakable friendship.  Years of insurmountable joy. Years of incredible heartache. Years to overcome and years to grow closer. And a dozen lifetimes spent together after this one ends.

_Happy birthday, Teddy._


	8. The Color of Permanence

You are heart-sick and lonely when you give in and owl him.

 

_J,_

_I miss you._

_Love,_

_T_

It has been two months since you’ve seen him. Touched him. Kissed him. Fucked him behind a matrix of wards and spells to hide from the world. He’s your dirty secret. He’s your dark affliction. Your hopeless addiction.

 

_T,_

_I know you do._

_\- J_

It’s always on his terms. It’s maddening. James has the uncanny ability to make you desperate from a hundred miles away.

  

_J,_

_I need you. Don’t tell me that you know, you smug bastard. Just come. Please._

_Love,_

_T_

He sends your owl back to you without a reply. You know it is entirely your fault that James is this cruel to you. He belongs to the world now, and you gave up any rights to his heart (or his body) when you broke it. You are not entitled to call him back to you on a whim. But you’ve been doing it on a semi-regular basis anyway.

He doesn’t have to come. James is a hot, young, international quidditch star. He gets what he wants and fucks who he wants, and you might as well be just another discarded conquest.

You don’t know what hurts more – the fact that he’s had dozens of lovers since you, or the fact that he doesn’t need you anymore.

It always surprises you when he does come. Always in the dead of night, always without warning.

 

Tonight, you wake up to his warmth pressed against your back. Sleep still has its loose tendrils around you, and so you think you’re dreaming. He’s very much like the nocturnal emission fodder of your boyhood – hard body, smooth skin, and devious lips descending upon you, unseen, from out of the darkness.

He kisses your neck and whispers hotly behind your ear, “I heard a rumor that you missed me.”

You want to be angry with him for making light of your turmoil. He doesn’t know what it’s like to be alone, haunted by memories of his love and his phantom touch, sequestered in a stone castle in the Scottish Highlands. But how _could_ he know? You’ve never told him how much his absence has affected you. You worry that he’ll feel stifled if you do tell him. The last thing you want to do is hold him back. 

Though you never tell him with words, you show him with hungry kisses. You kiss him like it’s the first time and the last time – reckless and unpracticed, desperate to add to your stash of memories, to horde away the taste of his mouth and the electric feel of his fingers creeping into the front your pajama pants.

You skip the small talk and the banter and lay him down on your bed. You’re eager and concurrently angry at him for violating your much needed sleep, as you nearly rip the clothes from his body. Every subsequent time you’ve done this, you’ve unveiled a different person beneath the garments. He’s changing so much that it scares you. He’s so painfully beautiful that you could weep and watch your humble tears roll down each gentle swell of his abdominal muscles. Each cut is deeper now, more defined. He’s not a scrappy kid who’s fast on his broom – he’s a chiseled athlete. He’s an Adonis. He’s a man. _Shit_ , he’s more of a man than _you_ are _._

When you worshipfully run your fingers along his rippling torso, you feel unworthy of the privilege. He’s a god, and you’re compelled to pay homage with your mouth on his cock – even _that_ part of him feels more massive than before, which is saying a lot. He tastes like he’s always been yours when he spurts down your throat, his fingers tangling in your bright, pink hair, your name on his breath like he’s drunk on your love.

It’s not until you push inside of him that you’re reminded of who he really is. He’s not that celebrity _Chaser Extraordinaire_ when he’s spread open and heaving wantonly beneath you _._ He’s just Jamie. And you can almost believe that he’s yours alone. You fuck him languidly, drawing out each wet slide, imparting with each slow thrust just how much you will miss him when he’s gone.

You fall asleep in a tangle of sweaty limbs. Maybe he’ll still be there when your alarm wakes you for morning classes. You never dare to hope. It’s rare that he stays.

This time is no different. The shrill tones jolt you awake. Your bed is cold and still damp with remnants of sex and sweat. Jamie is gone. Your chest aches because you already miss him and you’ve no idea when you’ll see him again, or how you’re going to cope.

You are about to flick your wand at the sheets to strip them from the bed when you see something sparkle. A thin chain of gold snakes through a tiny gilded crown on the indent of the pillow where Jamie’s head had been. You assume Jamie had unknowingly left a part of himself behind, but the clasp is closed. Which means he had to have taken it off and placed it there purposely.

You’re stunned. Jamie has never taken off his protective gold necklace, as far as you know, since the day you strung the crown on it – the day he gave himself to you for the first time.

Your heart shatters into a million pieces. You feel more definitively discarded than you ever have before.

James Sirius Potter is a god now. He doesn’t need the protection of his mother’s magic. He certainly doesn’t need a token of your broken relationship. He doesn’t need you - he could not have made this fact clearer.

You walk through the rest of the week like a ghost, moving along by force of habit and by no motivation of your own. Your lessons are lackluster and you don’t even care that your students are falling asleep in your classes.

You are so lost in your own empty world that you don’t notice it right away when an owl drops a letter on your plate at breakfast one morning. You weren’t really consciously eating your eggs enough to realize that the envelope had plopped right down in the yolk. Putting your fork in the paper startles you out of your mental fog.

You wipe the yellow mess from the envelope and recognize Jamie’s handwriting. You almost don’t want to open it. He already broke you. Does he have to rub it in? Of course he does. This is James, and he wouldn’t be who he is if he were not vindictive.

Of course you can’t resist reading the letter. You’ve always been a glutton for punishment where Jamie is concerned.

  

_T,_

_Haven’t heard from you. Wondering what you did with my chain. If you don’t want it, just toss it in the rubbish._

_-J_

 

You can almost hear his voice as you read the letter. You can hear his nonchalance just barely covering his hurt. You can see him casually shrugging his shoulders to distract you from the fact that he’s falling apart on the inside. You know him well enough to understand what this short missive really means.

He says he hasn’t heard from you. It means he’s been waiting to hear from you, perhaps looking for your owl on a daily basis.

He’s wondering what you did with the necklace – this means he purposely left it for you and expects you to acknowledge this fact.

He tells you that you can toss it, as if the necklace means nothing to him. But you know that it means everything to him.

Despite all that he’s said and all that he’s done, his feelings for you have never changed. He still loves you. It somehow breaks your heart while also making it swell with too much emotion.

Tears sting the corners of your eyes right there in the Great Hall, so you rush back to your private quarters. You’ve kept the gold crown on its chain in the drawer of your desk, set neatly in its own compartment, separated from the paper clips and quill tips. You carefully take it out, hold it tightly in your palm and clutch it to your chest, as if Jamie could feel it like an embrace.

You know what you have to do. It is what you should have done a long time ago - What you have always been too afraid to do. You’ve never been so sure of it as you are now. Maybe it isn’t the best thing, but it’s what you want, and it is high time that you mustered the courage to do it. You’re filled with emotion and you find yourself bawling like a baby in the middle of the day.

You hastily write a reply to Jamie’s letter and send it off straight away, telling your owl to hurry.

  

_J,_

_I want to return it to you in person. Please come at your earliest convenience._

_Love,_

_T_

 

As expected, he doesn’t write back to tell you if or when he’s coming. It’s been two weeks, and you’re worried that you’ve misinterpreted his letter. Maybe he meant exactly what he said. Maybe your initial interpretation had been correct all along and the necklace doesn’t mean much to him.

But then he shows up at your office during the day for a change. It’s after classes on a Friday, when he finds you grading papers. He’s got his hands in his jacket pockets and he looks cold on so many levels. You want to pity him, but you know that emotion is wasted on somebody like James, who thrives on steeling his emotions and projecting only the parts of himself that make him look strong. 

He greets you with a curt _hey_ and a little nod, as if you’re just old mates. You set down your papers and smile weakly at him, worried that this isn’t going to go the way you had hoped. He doesn’t look happy to see you and you think that maybe you’ve made a mistake.

“You wanted to see me?” he asks, sounding just like one of your students.

You flick your wand to shut and lock the door behind him. “I did.” You offer him your chair and sit on top of your desk. He looks like an indignant child who is about to be scolded unjustly.

“What did I do?” he asks. This is all too teacher-student for your liking. This isn’t how you and Jamie are supposed to be with one another.

You feel a painful tightness in your chest. You inwardly berate yourself for being a stupid, lovesick idiot. “What do you mean?”

“What did I do to lose you?” He looks up at you with storm-blue eyes that reflect the tempestuousness of his heart.

Your own foolish heart drops into your stomach. You lean forward and take his face in your hands. “Oh, Jamie…,” you breathe out with a forlorn sigh.

Now you realize that _he_ interpreted _your_ letter the wrong way.

He recoils and slips away from your touch. “Don’t fucking patronize me, alright?” he mutters bitterly, “Just give me the chain, tell me to fuck off, and you’ll never have to see me again.”

James is hard headed to a fault. It’s so very _Jamie_ and amusing enough to make you laugh a little.

He narrows his eyes at you and pouts. “Do you have to be so bloody cruel?”

You fall to your knees before him, still giggling. “Gods, you’re so fucking cute, I can’t stand it.”

You hold out the chain, devoid of its gold charm, and motion to put it back around his neck. He flinches away.

“I meant it when I said you can chuck it if you don’t want it,” he says.

You roll your eyes at him. “Hold still.” You close the clasp and admire the chain returned to its rightful owner.

“Hardly necessary,” he scoffs, glancing down at the thread of gold around his neck.

“Of course, its necessary. It’s got very strong magic. You’ll need it to protect you. I don’t want anything or anyone to damage my Jamie.”

He looks at you, brow raised, wordlessly questioning if he’d heard you correctly. You cup his cheek in your palm and smile. “Thanks for giving it to me, but I don’t need it to remind me of you. I’ve got you right here.” You take his hand and place it over your heart.

And for the first time since he walked in sulkily, he smiles. It’s a small one, but it’s enough to light up your whole world.

“Don’t I get my charm back?” he asks.

“You’re charming enough,” you joke and you both laugh softly.

You take him gently by the back of the neck and press your forehead to his. “I love you, Jamie,” you whisper, “You know that, don’t you?”

“Everyone loves me,” he says woefully, devoid of arrogance. He knows it’s a curse.

“Not like I do,” you say, barely audible. “Nobody will ever love you like I do.” You tilt your head to kiss him. It’s soft and pure, like the way he loved you at twelve-years-old.

You pull away to retrieve the miniscule crown from your desk. But you don’t return it to him the same way he left it. You have transfigured it. It’s larger now. Large enough to slip onto Jamie’s left-hand ring finger.

You gaze into his eyes, and you see yourself reflected in them. You can decipher the color of your hair, just from the way he’s looking at you. Your mutual adoration blooms in brilliant purple from the roots to the curled tips, and you think your hair will never fade from this color.

“Let’s stop being stupid, yeah?” You lift his hand to your lips and press a gentlemanly kiss to the ring you’ve just put on his finger.

You can tell that he wants to laugh, and the corners of his mouth start to go in that direction, but he breathes out shortly and it comes out less mirthful and more lamenting. The awkward sound embarrasses him, and so he bites the corner of his lip, which trembles slightly. His eyes try to roll, but they just glisten with impending tears. James has never had to deal with this much emotion all at once. At least, he’s never had to suppress such a wide range of emotion in one moment.

He sounds like he’s choking on all of his feelings when he speaks, trying and failing to cover it up with sarcasm. “If you stop being cryptic, maybe we can give it a go.”

You hold both of his hands just to steady yourself, lest you swoon too hard. “Marry me, Jamie?” Your words are a quiet, but desperate entreaty. 

You have always wanted him to be yours, and yours alone, but you’ve never had the courage to take him. You never felt you deserved him. But whether or not you deserve him is irrelevant right now.

He’s still fighting back tears, but they spill over his cheeks when he starts to smile too brightly. “I thought you’d never ask,” he says, dramatically feigning coyness, and then adds seriously, “No really. I didn’t think you had the balls to even date me.”

Your eyes widen. You’re suddenly very embarrassed. “Shit. Was that too much? Skipping the whole dating thing and going straight to the marriage proposal?”

Jamie rolls his eyes properly this time. “We’ve spent our whole lives together. Dating is sort of superfluous at this point, don’t you think?”

You giggle and your cheeks match the ruddy shade of his. “Probably.” You fold your arms around him and press your smile to his. “So, is that a _yes_?”

  

~//~

  

He’s still your affliction. He’s still your dark addiction. It still hurts like an amputated limb when he goes away. You still crave him on cold nights in the castle, and still draw upon memories of his firm body beneath you to get you through lonely weeks without him. You still close your eyes and masturbate lazily to the sound of his disembodied voice in your head and the taste of his ethereal lips sweetly assaulting your mouth. He still taunts you with cryptic letters and drives you to near madness with long stretches of no communication at all.

He’s still Jamie. He’ll never change. But you don’t want him to. You want your love for him to hurt the same way it did when it was forbidden. Because the moment you stop missing him is the moment you become complacent. And you never want your marriage to be that way.

He spends weeks on the road, playing quidditch, slaying dozens of admirers with his smirk alone. The gold wedding ring he wears does nothing to deter his rabid fans, and he leaves broken hearts in his wake wherever he goes. He’s a shameless flirt. He’s a whore for the paparazzi cameras.

But when he comes home, he comes home to you. To the cottage you built in Hogsmeade on the site where the Shrieking Shack once stood.

He is your best friend, your brother, your lover. He is your lionhearted king. He is your everything.

Above all else, he is yours.

And you are his.

Forever.


End file.
